Monday 27 August 2012

Visions Of Mars

"The Structure Of A Series: John Carter" on www.sfappreciation.blogspot.co.uk is my attempt at a succinct summary of Edgar Rice Burroughs' four interconnected interplanetary series which are mostly Martian:

eleven volumes for Mars, with excursions to a Martian moon and Jupiter;
four for Venus;
one each for the Moon and an extrasolar planet.

(ERB's three Moon stories are two volumes in paperback and one in hardback so here I count them as one volume.)

In fact, I probably make these series sound better than they are. ERB's plots and characterisation do not fulfill the promise of his colourful, imaginative, exotic settings. In any case, his Mars is literary, not scientific. It has canals and is not only inhabited but humanly habitable. In the real universe, hard work will be needed to make Mars habitable.

Several chapters of Poul Anderson's The Fleet Of Stars describe a colonised, though not yet terraformed, Mars, like a more realistic counterpart of Frank Herbert's Dune. We see the economic, political and cultural life of the colonists and even something that is more common in an ERBian universe, military conflict.

Anderson's "Martians" perform midsummer rites around the Dreamers' Craters and three "Dreamers" are named: Wells, Weinbaum and Heinlein. (I usually say that the three main British writers about Martians are Wells, Stapledon and Lewis and the three main Americans are Burroughs, Heinlein and Bradbury but, of course, there are many others and which are the main ones is debatable.) Would Anderson's Martians have included Burroughs among their "Dreamers"? Maybe, but, judging from the names mentioned, they seem to prefer a harder sf list.

5 comments:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Hi, Paul!

I believe you were too hard on Edgar Rice Burroughs Barsoom books. They gave and continue to give me great pleasure when I reread them. They are gripping, fast paced, and fun to read. The heroes are heroic and the villains are villainous.

Moreover, in light of what was known about Mars when Burroughs wrote his Barsoom books, the description of Mars he gave and the deductions he drew from what was then thought plausible made his stories at least semi plausible. Were they hard SF? No, but I would call them "science fantasy."

Sean

Paul Shackley said...

I don't think they contain any fantasy. I call them "sword and science."

I think what you say is sometimes true of Burroughs but not always. THE MOON MAID has an intriguing setting but nothing else. His villain's motivations are far too one-dimensional.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Hi, Paul!

I still argue for Burroughs' Barsoom tales being among the best of his books. A PRINCESS OF MARS, THE GODS OF MARS, CHESSMEN OF MARS, etc., being some which came to mind. And Burroughs was capable of handling serious ideas in his books. Not all fiction has to be sternly serious!

Sean

Paul Shackley said...

I agree his Mars books are the best, of those I've read. Couldn't get into Tarzan, as I said. Kipling said ERB wrote TARZAN OF THE APES to see how bad a book he could write and still get it published!

I remember being disappointed on rereading LLANA OF GATHOL and THE MOON MAID. THE MASTERMIND OF MARS was quite clever.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Hi, Paul!

Ha ha ha! What I remember reading about Burroughs was that he was reading a truly appalling piece of fiction on the train one day and thought: "I can do better than this." A thought which led him to write what became A PRINCESS OF MARS a century ago.

I do agree the Barsoom books vary in quality. And maybe I should try rereading some of the Tarzan books.

Sean