A Princess of Mars discussion

I really want this book, but do I need to read all eleven to get to the end of the story because that begins to cost quite a bit of money

The first three books are about John Carter, then in the fourth his son takes over. I read the first three, and i may or may not get the the fourth. If you only want to read about John, i believe his story is only in the first three. I know he makes cameos in some other novels, but i think he is the protagonist in the first three and that's it.

you can find the first five books on gutenberg.org for free, i believe... legal, public domain copies.

Get them from the library.

Love all the old stuff got the whole burrouoghs set on my kindle

Love all the old stuff got the whole burrouoghs set on my kindle

Ashley-Anne wrote: "I really want this book, but do I need to read all eleven to get to the end of the story because that begins to cost quite a bit of money"


Reading order is usually a lot less important in classic pulp fiction. The stories were often originally published sporadically and in different publications so the authors kept the stories very much self contained.

Even if you miss a book and the events or characters are referenced again it's very likely that the details will be sketched in for you.

I have read all 11 stories. I read them when I was a kid. I'm 67 now. All Burroughs books I have read at one time or other

Read a few when I was la young child, got all the Burroughs, can't wait to get to the Tarzan series

Carl wrote: "Read a few when I was la young child, got all the Burroughs, can't wait to get to the Tarzan series"

The Tarzan series was great and definitely different than the movies.

Got the first six of the Weismuller Tarzan films, they are still the best of the Tarzans. There was a series on American TV starring some male model with an unusual name it had promise but didn't last.

Carl wrote: "Got the first six of the Weismuller Tarzan films, they are still the best of the Tarzans. There was a series on American TV starring some male model with an unusual name it had promise but didn't l..."

I remember seeing them also when I was young. I loved them and yes they were the best. The TV series was just so so.

I haven't read A Princess of Mars but I got an audio book of it with Bob Thomley as the story teller, his voice acting is one of my favorites. From then on I downloaded free copies of the rest of the series from Project Gutenburg.

While all the books stand alone by themselves, it helps to read them in order for the sake of some fuller explanations in the earlier books.

I recommended the book to my dad and he said he read all of his books. I guess its time to play catch up.

Timothy wrote: "I haven't read A Princess of Mars but I got an audio book of it with Bob Thomley as the story teller, his voice acting is one of my favorites. From then on I downloaded free copies of the rest of t..."

Yes you need to read them in order to get the whole picture.

I need to play catch up in once again getting all of the books. I lost them some where between being the army and just plain life. I'm now retired so now I can play catch up with all the books.

Ashley-Anne wrote: "I really want this book, but do I need to read all eleven to get to the end of the story because that begins to cost quite a bit of money"

Ebook editions of pretty much all of them are free and legally available, as they are in the public domain. I got mine from manybooks.net, which I believe is redistributing the Gutenberg texts.

Can't tell you if you "need" to finish them all, as I'm only on book 2 myself.

Tom wrote: "The first three books are about John Carter, then in the fourth his son takes over."

thanks so much for a clear and concise reply :)

Josh wrote: "you can find the first five books on gutenberg.org for free, i believe... legal, public domain copies."

Here is the link to the Edgar Rice Burroughs page on BooksShouldbeFree. You can get books in quite a few formats there.

I have not yet checked out manybooks.net though, which appears to offer the whole set.

In my opinion, the first three were the strongest, although Swords Of Mars had its moments. Definitely do yourself a favour and DO NOT read book 11, John Carter Of Mars. It was terrible.

A Princess of Mars was fun - and I didn't really need to have read any others in the series to understand it. It's a bit like Terry Pratchett's Discworld - it's a world where all sorts of stories can be told, and they don't have to be in any order.
Chessmen of Mars was so much fun that my sister and I tried to enlarge our chess board to 100 squares and learn the rules (apart from the killing the opposing piece part, anyway!)

Most of them are free in the Kindle library. And if you don't have a Kindle the app if free for PC, Mac, iPhone, Android and pretty much everything/everywhere. It's how I read the first book. I may or may not go on and read the others. I wasn't THAT drawn in to be honest.

Lee wrote: "Most of them are free in the Kindle library. And if you don't have a Kindle the app if free for PC, Mac, iPhone, Android and pretty much everything/everywhere. It's how I read the first book. I may..."

Most of them are free from Project Gutenberg in numerous formats.

I have read them all, and found some of the later ones lackluster and repetitive.

The first three comprise a complete story and are highly recommended.

The fourth, "Thuvia, Maid of Mars," was very good; don't judge it by the beginning, which sets up the relationship of the main characters. It gets much livelier after that.



Then skip to Mastermind of Mars. It features fascinating elements of body switching and false religion.



If you want more of John Carter, skip to Swords of Mars. Carter is central, there is good suspense, and a voyage to one of the moons of Mars that is bizarre.



The editions shown are the book club editions with beautiful dust jacket paintings by Frazetta.

If you like the five stories I mentioned, try the others. They all have amazing features.

Purely my opinion: all the inspiration is in the first three novels ("Princess/Gods/Warlord of Mars"). After that, Burroughs fell into his formulaic mode.

Bryan wrote: "In my opinion, the first three were the strongest, although Swords Of Mars had its moments. Definitely do yourself a favour and DO NOT read book 11, John Carter Of Mars. It was terrible."
It's believed to have been posthumously written by Burrough's son.

The last of the series also features John Carter. However it is not a novel but rather two stories, of which the second one was the first of what was to be a linked series of four shorter works which took Carter to the planet Jupiter. Burroughs did this with a couple of other series (Pellucidar and Venus I believe) but didn't complete the other three stores in this one. By the way his son John Coleman also wrote at least one science fiction novel which wasn't too bad.

FYI: Anyone who is interested, we've started a discussion on A Princess of Mars over at Written Gems. We'd love to have you drop by and share your thoughts.

Ashley-Anne wrote: "I really want this book, but do I need to read all eleven to get to the end of the story because that begins to cost quite a bit of money"

You will want to read them all if you enjoy it. The first book is part of a trilogy. Fortunately you can get all of them for free from the main Gutenberg website http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Science... and the rest are on Gutenberg Australia http://gutenberg.net.au/plusfifty-a-m...