SCI-FI BOOKS
John Carter From Mars Series by Edgar Rice Burroughs
The world of Barsoom is a romantic vision of
a dying Mars. Writers and science popularizers
like Camille Flammarion, who was convinced that
Mars was at a later stage of evolution than Earth
and therefore much more dry, took the ideas further
and published books like Les Terres du Ciel (1884),
which contained illustrations of a planet covered
with canals. Burroughs gives credits to him in
his writings, and goes as far as to say that he
based his vision of Mars on that of Flammarion.
John Carter is transported to Mars in a way described
by Flammarion in Urania (1889), where a man from
earth is transported to Mars as an astral body
where he wakes up to a lower gravity, two moons,
strange plants and animals and several races of
advanced humans. In The Plurality of Inhabited
Worlds and Lumen, he further speculates about
plant people and other creatures on far away planets,
elements that would later appear in the Barsoom
stories.
The Barsoom series, where John Carter in the
late 1800s is mysteriously transported from Earth
to a Mars suffering from dwindling resources,
has been cited by many well known science fiction
writers as having inspired and motivated them
in their youth, as well as by key scientists involved
in both space exploration and the search for extraterrestrial
life. Elements of the books have been adapted
by many writers, in novels, short stories, comics,
television and film.
Avatar: In interviews, James Cameron has invoked
Burroughs as one of the primary inspirations behind
his 2009 space adventure.
Babylon 5: In this science fiction television
series, Amanda Carter – a Martian citizen and
advocate of Mars' independence from Earth – is
revealed to have had a grandfather named John
who was a pioneer colonist on Mars. This has been
confirmed by the series creator J. Michael Straczynski
as a reference made by the episode writer Larry
DiTillio to John Carter of Mars.
Flash Gordon, Buck Rogers film serials of the
1930s
The Star Wars films owe debts and offer nods to
Burroughs' Barsoom novels.
A
Princess of Mars (1912)
The
Gods of Mars (1914)
The
Warlord of Mars (1918)
Thuvia, Maid of Mars (1920)
The
Chessmen of Mars (1922)
The Master Mind of Mars (1928)
A Fighting Man of Mars (1931)
Swords
of Mars (1936)
Synthetic Men of Mars (1940)
Llana of Gathol (1948)
John Carter of Mars (1964)
