John Carter's Chronicles of Mars

By Edgar Rice Burroughs

Collected here in this oversized omnibus edition are five novels of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs: A Princess of Mars, Gods Of Mars, Warlords of Mars, Thuvia, Maid of Mars, and The Chessmen of Mars. These novels will transport you to a lush Mars that never was. A Mars filled with strange and wonderful flora and fauna; giants and monsters, and most importantly maidens in distress and fabulous adventures. Join John Carter as he explores this fantastic milieu.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Start Publishing LLC
• Release date: May 20, 2013
• ISBN: 9781627931960

Edgar Rice Burroughs

Edgar Rice Burroughs (1875-1950) had various jobs before getting his first fiction published at the age of 37. He established himself with wildly imaginative, swashbuckling romances about Tarzan of the Apes, John Carter of Mars and other heroes, all at large in exotic environments of perpetual adventure. Tarzan was particularly successful, appearing in silent film as early as 1918 and making the author famous. Burroughs wrote science fiction, westerns and historical adventure, all charged with his propulsive prose and often startling inventiveness. Although he claimed he sought only to provide entertainment, his work has been credited as inspirational by many authors and scientists.

Reviews for John Carter's Chronicles of Mars

[snotbottom-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Bit of a mixed review for the two stories in this volume. The first, "The Giant of Mars" was a disappointment.

The second "Skeleton Men of Jupiter" showed more promise, but unfortunately is unfinished.

[stormraven_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This is the eleventh, and final book featuring John Carter, Prince of Helium, Warlord of Barsoom. It was published after Burrough's death, and consists of two completely unrelated stories.The first, The Giant of Mars, is so different than most of the rest of Burroughs' work that when published, many people believed that it could not have been written by him. It contains numerous elements that don't show up in other Barsoom tales, and the style of writing is very different from anything else Burroughs ever wrote. The best guess appears to be that the tale was written for a proposed illustrated children's book, although it is hard to think of Barsoom, with naked princesses, warriors killing each other in bloody sword fights, and a host of other very pulpy adult elements as a children's book. The Giant of Mars is pretty gruesome at points - rats feeding on dead flesh surrounding by piles of human bones, decapitations, women sexually attacked by apes and so on, so I can only imagine what the illustrations would have been like.The second half of the book, titled The Skeleton Men of Jupiter moves John Carter from Barsoom to Sasoom, or Jupiter after he is kidnapped by the titular skeleton men who plan to invade Barsoom and want to torture him into giving them information to aid their conquest. The story involves the usual elements of a John Carter story - Dejah Thoris is placed in danger, Carter secures her escape, is captured, has to fight in an arena, manages a daring escape, and then seeks out his princess. The story seems to end abruptly, and there is some thought that Burroughs had planned to write a series of stories set on Jupiter, Mars having apparently been thoroughly explored in the previous stories. Unfortunately Burroughs died before he could give us anything besides this one story.It is kind of sad to leave behind John Carter - he is definitely a pulpy character, but he is pulpy in all the good ways - bold, courageous, chivalrous, and more than a little lucky. The story that began in A Princess of Mars is well worth following through the series, even if this final book seems a little disjointed.