John Carter of Mars The First Five Novels - Leatherbound

"John Carter of Mars" seems to be a completely different specimen of ERB's Barsoom stories, and bafflingly so. Maybe it's because it's told in the 3rd person, as opposed to every other Barsoom story having been told in the 1st. Maybe it's the peculiar representation of the main characters that seem like we're looking at them in a sort of psychological funhouse mirror. Settings, customs and even technologies are turned on their heads almost as if ERB was trying to reinvent his fictional world.Or......maybe "John Carter of Mars" was really a completely different, more Jasoomian story to begin with, and ERB made an incredibly lazy, half-hearted rewrite with old names substituted in place of newer, unrecognized ones.Either way, what might have been a passable story set on Earth, is a shambles when set on Mars.

This contains two unrelated stories, /John Carter of Mars/ and /The Skeleton Men of Mars/.The first was written by Burroughs' son; in it, John Carter meets, once again, the synthetic men, this time including an indestructible giant. Not being a great literary critic, I saw no real difference from the father's work here. There have been several SF writers who kept putting out new works after they died, some of them "edited" by others; perhaps this is really an early instance of that. I have also noticed some series ("Clive Cussler", for example) being continued by other authors with the originators name used on the cover; perhaps this was intended to do the same thing -- keep the series going to enhance revenue.The second was written by Burroughs. The ending was a bit rushed; apparently, it was to be followed by more stories explaining how John Carter whomped the Skeleton Men of Jupiter. But what we have is quite interesting by itself.This book worked for me, but it may not work for you; it depends on how fanatical you are about Barsoom.

Wonderful science fantasy by Edgar Rice Burroughs. Having been created before Tarzan, John Carter of Mars is great for fans of science fiction, fantasy, and adventure.

I bought this to complete the collection, but alas it is by far the worst of the series and probably should not have been written. Ah Well.

Arrived super fast and in incredible condition as advertised. It will be a great addition to my library!

A solidly good book and a great adventure read. However, the author's name is misspelled in the Amazon entry!

This is a very nice heirloom edition, "Those whom the gods love, grow young..."

I love this series. I read them all as a child and decided to revisit my childhood by purchasing this volume. It's a great volume, wonderful designed cover and the stories are of course as awesome and fresh as when I first read them 40 year ago.

Have read all of Mars saga, this one unfortunately had two stories, first written by the son and not so good, second good but unfinished, surely they could have had someone finish the saga.

John Carter is one of Edger Rice Burroughs' great creations and I have very much enjoyed this story and all the others I have read that have included him.

This was a a light-hearted, interesting and enjoyable read.

This was for my personal collection.