I loved the John Carter series and at one time had all the pocketbooks. ( )

Excellent EBook Collection Of The First Seven Barsoom Books

First off, this is not a review of the books themselves. Edgar Rice Burroughs' Barsoom books are widely considered to be classics of speculative fiction that have influenced everything from Superman to Star Wars to Avatar; the last century of popular culture would be almost unthinkably different without them.

Onto the eBook itself. This really is an excellent presentation of the first seven Barsoom books. It has everything that you would want it to have: the forwards to all the novels (which I understand have been excluded from some eBook versions), the glossary from THUVIA, MAID OF MARS, the rules of Jetan from THE CHESSMEN OF MARS - all present and accounted for. Typos are not entirely absent but are very few and far between (much more so than in some of the "official" publications of these books from Ballantine/Del Rey, actually). All these books are in the public domain in the United States and can be downloaded for free from various Internet sites, but the extremely reasonable asking price for this collection makes it more than worth the purchase, in my humble opinion. If this sounds like what you're looking for, then you know what to do. ( )

A bit dated but a thrilling science fiction sequel nonetheless. Burroughs takes his readers on an ecstactic galactic ride across the surface of Mars with vivid scenic descriptions and epic tales of battles fought. A repeated theme throughout the sequel though, is that of a stolen princess and a hapless unlikely warrior who defies all odds to save her, yet this in no way bores or tires readers.

As one concludes the sequel however one soon begins to realize that much of Burroughs story telling of Mars in terms of what happened to it's resources, the degradation of it's environment by Martians and the constant warring between Martian tribes and nations is but a sad reflection of life on earth amongst human beings. It is said that if one wants to know what the future will be like one ought to read science fiction..going by that thesis Burrough's John Carter does not bode well for life on planet earth or relations between man and himself and the environment. ( )