John Carter of Mars (Library of Wonder): A Princess of Mars, The Gods of Mars, The Warlord of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs, Thomas Yeates (Illustrator), Michael Ashley (Introduction)
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(Hardcover)
- Pub. Date: September 2009
- 504pp
- Sales Rank: 5,571
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Product Details
- Pub. Date: September 2009
- Publisher: Fall River Press
- Format: Hardcover, 504pp
- Sales Rank: 5,571
- Series: Library of Wonder Series
- ISBN-13: 9781435115569
- ISBN: 1435115562
Synopsis
“[Edgar Rice Burroughs created] an entire world with a history and variety of cultures on a scale that would not be repeated until J. R. R. Tolkien created Middle-earth."
—Mike Ashley
Interplanetary perils and swashbuckling adventures on the Red Planet await you in John Carter of Mars, a thrilling trio of science fantasy novels by Edgar Rice Burroughs. Written during the heyday of the pulp fiction era, these bestselling, epic blends of derring-do and dazzling romance permanently remapped the terrain of fantasy and science fiction. Lavishly illustrated by comic art celebrity Thomas Yeates, this new edition brings Burroughs’ classic tales vividly to life for modern readers.
A Princess of Mars (1912) introduces officer John Carter, transported magically from Earth to Mars and plunged immediately into intrigues embroiling the Martian races. In The Gods of Mars (1918) and The Warlord of Mars (1919), Burroughs elaborates his colorful vision of Mars as a home to fantastic fauna, airborne pirates, and battling tribes of nomadic, four-armed green Martian giants and city-dwelling red Martians.
Already a seasoned swordsman, Carter becomes an even fiercer warrior, unfettered by the planet’s lesser gravity. Thrust into one deadly battle after another as he seeks to woo the beautiful Dejah Thoris, Princess of Helium, John Carter of Mars magnificently meets his destiny as science fiction’s first larger-than-life hero.
Biography
Born in Chicago, Illinois, on September 1, 1875, into a well-to-do family, Edgar Rice Burroughs was given an aristocratic private education. But though he tried his hand at several business ventures, he was drawn more to an itinerant life of adventure than to a life in the boardroom.
In 1912, after many failed business ventures, the thirty-five-year-old Burroughs published his first story, “Under the Moons of Mars,” in the pulp magazine All-Story. It was so successful that he turned soon thereafter to writing full-time. He would write nearly 70 novels and numerous short stories before his death in 1950. Although best-known for his immensely popular Tarzan series—he later bought an estate near where the films were shot in Southern California that he named Tarzana—Burroughs didn’t confine himself to a single genre, also writing medieval romances, westerns, and mainstream novels.
Among his many science-fiction works, Burroughs wrote eleven novels in the John Carter of Mars series, the titular final installment of which was published fourteen years after his death in 1950.
Mike Ashley is a full time writer and researcher with nearly a hundred books to his credit. These cover such diverse titles as The Seven Wonders of the World, British Kings and Queens, The Mammoth Book of King Arthur, Incredible Monsters and the biography of Algernon Blackwood, Starlight Man. He has also written a four-volume history of the science-fiction magazines and a book about the British popular fiction magazines The Age of the Story-tellers. He lives in Kent, England with his wife and three cats, andwhen time allows likes to go for long walks.
Customer Reviews
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ERB'S CLASSIC TRILOGY GETS FIRST CLASS TREATMENTby WCW
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November 10, 2009: Many readers might be familiar with the basic story line of Edgar Rice Burroughs' classic Martian tales. Familiar with John Carter of Mars, his Martian Princess Dejah Thoris and his fierce six limbed green Martian warrior ally Tars Tarkas. What might not be as familiar is the complex story arc that sweeps through these first three volumes--with concepts and conflicts of war, peace and the survival of a people. Of the inventiveness of Burroughs' Barsoom with its many racial, multi species population, and the ever changing political and religious interests that ultimately lead to a great war and the salvation of an entire planet from the tyranny of a false god.
The first three novels in one volume provide a chance to read and absorb the story as one continuous tale. This volume is very handsome, well crafted and put together, with amazing illustrations by Thomas Yeates. The colorful endpapers and volume breaks, page decorations, lists of illustration and other features make this a book of high quality, and at an amazingly low price.IT'S ABOUT TIME!...maybeby Anonymous
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November 09, 2009: Ever since Del Rey began their excellent series of Robert E. Howard collections, I've been waiting and hoping that they or someone similar would do the same for Burroughs' classic, hugely influential works. (How influential? Well, for example, Star Wars fans might be surprised to learn that the "Martian" words "Jed" and "Sith" are used throughout the Mars series of novels.) The problem with collecting Burroughs in this day and age, however, is that many of his novels have fallen into public domain, which basically means that anyone with access to a high speed copier can print their own editions. Still, I have always felt that a well-designed edition of public domain works is still infinitely more marketable than a cheap knockoff from an on-demand printer, and this volume, with its magnificent (and exclusive) illustrations by Thomas Yeates, proves my point (at least insofar as they were able to sell it to ME immediately).
The question now, though, is whether Fall River will continue with the rest of the series. As I alluded above, there are a number of publishers who have printed A PRINCESS OF MARS or the trilogy that this edition collects, only to let the rest of the series fall by the wayside. Just as I felt that these books merited a quality package, I also feel that the series as a whole will be much more marketable, both to its oldest fans and to new readers, if the ENTIRE series is made available. Apart from the short-lived Leonaur publications from a couple of years ago (which apparently suffered from numerous character-recognition-derived glitches), I don't believe this has yet been tried. Given the quality of this book, I believe it's crucial for Burroughs fans to pester the living daylights out of Fall River until they agree to complete the series. (And a companion edition reprinting the entire Pellucidar series wouldn't be too shabby an idea either!)
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