Edgar R. Burroughs

[Connavar]

Im about to get A Princess of Mars from bookmooch cant wait to read this author.

I have high hopes for John Carter series. I cant wait to see what Sword and Planet is like

 

[murphy]

Im about to get A Princess of Mars from bookmooch cant wait to read this author.

It ends on a cliffhanger. When I first read it, it took me 10 years and 2500 miles to find the followup book. Thank goodness for the internet.

 

[Connavar]

I finaly started reading A Princess of Mars. So far its much easier read than i expected for such an old book. Usually with books this old you have to get used the way an author writes for a while.

Best and easiest i have read this kind of first person narrative too. Usually in stories like this where the book is like a diary for the main character it becomes too much babbling and too little action and things happening.

For example last month i read a Historical Fiction where Augustus was telling his own life in this kind of narrative. It became too much him talking to himself and you didnt get in his world, you only heard what he said about people. "Later on i learned to misstrust him " and so on. Dont like foreshadowing without a point.

 

[Fried Egg]

I've read the first two Tarzan books and the first two Venus books. Both series are very good (so far). I've been looking around for "Princess of Mars" but as yet to find it second hand.

Burroughs is one hell of an adventure story writer. And that's what his stories are primarilly; adventures. They aren't pure fluff mind; I found it thought provoking Carson's discovery of the utopian/distopian city state that had "perfected" themselves eugenically (in "Lost on Venus").

 

[J-Sun]

Hm. I thought I was going to be weird in saying how much I recall liking the Pellucidar books, but several people on this thread (though in posts from a couple years ago) have praised them. I like most all the rest, too, and I'm not sure what my favorites are, but probably most from Pellucidar and Barsoom. And, yeah, like many things, the Tarzan stuff is an example of a large disjunction between the original books and other media.

 

[j d worthington]

Yes, Burroughs was very good at adventure tales. Some of his later work seemed half-baked now and again, but even so, he is almost always entertaining. His style can be somewhat slipshod now and again, but he was also primarily a pulp writer, with few pretensions to being anything other than being a popular storyteller.

Nonetheless, as noted, he did occasionally put in some social commentary and the like, which also helped lift his work above the sort of thing people like Otis Adelbert Kline did; and at his best, Burroughs can still hold the interest of anyone who likes a rousing tale....

 

[Contrary Mary]

First, should anyone be interested in reading ABOUT Burroughs, Richard Lupoff wrote a biography called Edgar Rice Burroughs: Master of Adventure which is quite good.

As for waht to read I went through a Burroughs phase when younger and read a lot.

Since Princess of Mars ends on a cliff hanger, you should read at least the first two Mars books together. By the time you get to number 8 or 9, they do get a little repetitive; so continue reading till you have had enough.

Also, I want to add my vote for Tarzan of the Apers (Tarzan #1). It is nothing like the movies. Yes, it is dated---but reading at least the first one will give you an idea of what Burroughs inteneded and what he really wrote.

 

[AE35Unit]

Me again! Not so widely read on ERB - but I did read the John Carter/mars series (or most anyway - I seem to remember that there were about fifteen of them!)

Very good indeed!! And if you like these, try Philip Hose Farmer...

Philip Jose Farmer similar to ERB? Hmmm never tried any of his stuff. I thought farmer was hard SF rather than adventure?

 

[chrispenycate]

I can't think of one of Farmer's books that I would really qualify as "hard" SF. Certainly his "World of Tiers" is pretty solidly adventure, and "Lord Tyger" is Burroughs pastiche.

And even his straight SF gives few explanations, just tells what the situation is which, compared with a lot of what was being written at the same time, makes it hardly hard at all.

 

[j d worthington]

I have to agree with Chris here. Though Farmer certainly kept up with the sciences (last I heard, anyway), he was anything but a hard sf writer. Nor would I call him traditional, in most senses of the term. He often used traditional materials, but frequently turned them on their heads (cf. Strange Relations, a collection of tales of alien encounters, which are actually explorations of Jungian and Freudian symbology and archetypes), and most often his work was exploration (through story) of the human need for and fertility in creating myths, whether of the classical (Greek and Roman) or pop cultural (Doc Savage, Tarzan, The Shadow, etc. -- the first two on which he did "biographies")....

He also had a love of atrocious puns which would rival Robert Bloch....

 

[AE35Unit]

Ah I must have been confusing Farmer with another author,one with only two rather than three names.
Oh and by the way when I was a lad I thoroughly enjoyed the Tarzan films with Ron Ely or Johnny Weisemuller. One was an olympic swimmer I believe. I never knew at the time there were books and even now I look at those old films/TV series with fond memories.

 

[dask]

I'm reading THE LAND THAT TIME FORGOT right now and am enjoying it immensely.

 

[Zendexor]

Following on my previous Robert E. Howard question, I'd like to ask the same question about ERB: what should I read?

Beyond the Farthest Star is unputdownable. It consists of two novellas which together make up a continuous story, set on a planet called Poloda, in a system of planets which all share a common orbit. The story is more intense and less "colourful" than most of ERB: the emphasis is more on politics and suspense. But the same old magic holds the reader.