Before many of the current genres were cemented, Edgar Rice Burroughs began putting out a seemingly endless blur of sci-fi/fantasy/pulp fiction books, starting with A Princess of Mars. The next installment in his Martian - or Barsoom - series is The Gods of Mars (1918), featuring John Carter. He's an ex-Civil War vet, chock full of heroic, non-PC manliness. Carter returns to Mars after 10 years to find himself in a paradise, reunited with his wife Deja Thoris, but soon Barsoom becomes a war zone. The diabolical Therns, a race of evil priests, have unleashed plant men and white apes to kill |