Barsoom Series

Far to the north, in the frozen wastes of Polar Mars, lay the home of the Holy Therns, sacred and inviolate. Only John Carter dared to go there to find his lost Dejah Thoris. But between him and his goal lay the bones of all who had gone before.

Imagine, if you can, a bald-faced hornet of your Earthly experience grown to the size of a prize Hereford bull, and you will have some faint conception of the winged monster that bore down upon me. 

Frightful jaws in front and a might, poisoned string behind made my relatively puny long-sword seem a pitiful defense indeed. Nor could I hope to escape the lightning-like movements or hide from these myriad faced eyes which covered three-fourths of the hideous head, permitting the creature to see in all directions at once.

To flee was useless, even if it had ever been to my liking to turn my back upon a danger; so I stood my ground, my only hope to die as i had always lived—fighting.

After a long exile on Earth, John Carter finally returned to his beloved Mars. But beautiful Dejah Thoris, the woman he loved, had vanished. Now he was trapped in the legendary Eden of Mars—an Eden from which none ever escaped alive.

Three monstrous white apes sprang into the arena. On her throne, Issus, the living goddess of the First Born, leaned forward in keen anticipation. At length the apes spied the huddled knot of terror-stricken maidens and, with demoniacal shrieks of bestial frenzy, charged upon them.

A wave of mad fury surged over me. A single blow sent my guard unconscious to the ground. Snatching up his long-sword, I leaped into tthe arena. The sword whirled and a great ape sprawled headless at the feet of the fainting girls.

The other apes were upon me now—but my act had heartened the prisoners, and the cages vomited forth their inmates hot with the lust to kill—doomed men dedicated to revenge upon Issus!

But against each of us were a thousand warriors of the First Born.

Virginia gentleman John Carter, unexpectedly transported to the perilous red planet, Mars, finds himself captured by the loveless Green Men of Thark. As Carter struggles to win his freedom—and the affections of fellow captive Dejah Thoris, princess of the rival clan of Helium—the fate of the entire planet hangs in the balance: warring Martian tribes collide and the beleaguered Atmosphere Factory grinds to a suffocating halt. Ray Bradbury, reminiscing on the enduring thrill of Burroughs’s Martian adventure, writes, “I stood on the lawns of summer, raised my hands, and cried for Mars, like John Carter, to take me home. I flew to the Red Planet and never returned.”