Reviews

A Princess of Mars: A Barsoom Novel by Edgar Rice Burroughs

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thederplord's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional lighthearted mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

youngthespian42's review against another edition

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2.0

I wanted to love this. I love HG Wells and get past HP Lovecraft and his flawed language choice. The second half of this book the pulp action part of the book takes off and it’s enjoyable enough but the first half is rough.

John Carter was an officer in the Confederate Army and that comes with the racism and sexism you would expect. I try to only judge a book by its time but some of the stuff in here is a little eyebrow raising even by 1912 standards. For me the juice was not worth the squeeze.

annashiv's review against another edition

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3.0

It was pretty enjoyable. He created such a wonderful beautiful world, without which we may not have star wars today. I do feel it could have done better. I John Carter didn't talk about what happened like and then this happened and then this. It made it a little monotonous. I get why it was that way since it was just something he wrote for money at first, so I might try the next story or two to see if those are any good. I just felt this one was very linear and it seemed like he just wrote it without really knowing what he wanted to accomplish. Other wise I enjoyed it. Thought it very creative and was worth reading at least once.

priya_amrev's review against another edition

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3.0

I think I read this series back when I was 8 years old
I canâ€™t really remember and have never been able to find but it was about some earth man who falls in love with a Martian princess
I feel like one of the covers was different tho: she was slim and had red skin

liberty_the_baron's review

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adventurous mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

historyofjess's review against another edition

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adventurous medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.0

I know this is a very prized work amongst long-time science fiction fans (especially those of the masculine persuasion), but I do not think this has aged well in the slightest (and I say that as someone who actually enjoyed the movie, when it came out). I didn't find the action or the diversions into Mars science to be very compelling and I was not fond of the John Carter, as a main character, at all. I don't think this helped by the fact that I've also been reading an anthology of indigenous and queer speculative fiction short stories before bed every night....I think that really made colonizer narrative even more unbearable for me.