John Carter of Mars is a fictional Virginian soldier who acts as the initial protagonist of the Barsoom stories by Edgar Rice Burroughs. A veteran of the American Civil War, he is transported to the planet Mars, called Barsoom by its inhabitants, where he becomes a warrior battling various mythological beasts, alien armies and malevolent foes. Created in 1911, the character has appeared in novels and short stories, comic books, television shows and films, including the 2012 feature film John Carter, which marked the 100th anniversary of the character's first appearance.
A Princess of Mars is a science fantasy novel by American writer Edgar Rice Burroughs, the first of his Barsoom series. It was first serialized in the pulp magazine All-Story Magazine from February–July, 1912. Full of swordplay and daring feats, the novel is considered a classic example of 20th-century pulp fiction. It is also a seminal instance of the planetary romance, a subgenre of science fantasy that became highly popular in the decades following its publication. Its early chapters also contain elements of the Western. The story is set on Mars, imagined as a dying planet with a harsh desert environment. This vision of Mars was based on the work of the astronomer Percival Lowell, whose ideas were widely popularized in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Thuvia, Maid of Mars is a science fantasy novel by American writer Edgar Rice Burroughs, the fourth of the Barsoom series. The principal characters are Carthoris and Thuvia of Ptarth, each of whom appeared in the previous two novels.
The Gods of Mars is a science fantasy novel by American writer Edgar Rice Burroughs and the second of Burroughs' Barsoom series. It features the characters of John Carter and Carter's wife Dejah Thoris. It was first published in The All-Story as a five-part serial in the issues for January–May 1913. It was later published as a complete novel by A. C. McClurg in September, 1918 and in many editions subsequently.
The Warlord of Mars is a science fantasy novel by American writer Edgar Rice Burroughs, the third of his Barsoom series. Burroughs began writing it in June, 1913, going through five working titles; Yellow Men of Barsoom, The Fighting Prince of Mars, Across Savage Mars, The Prince of Helium, and The War Lord of Mars.
The Chessmen of Mars is a science fantasy novel by American writer Edgar Rice Burroughs, the fifth of his Barsoom series. Burroughs began writing it in January, 1921, and the finished story was first published in Argosy All-Story Weekly as a six-part serial in the issues for February 18 and 25 and March 4, 11, 18 and 25, 1922. It was later published as a complete novel by A. C. McClurg in November 1922.
The Master Mind of Mars is a science fantasy novel by American writer Edgar Rice Burroughs, the sixth of his Barsoom series. Burroughs' working titles for the novel were A Weird Adventure on Mars and Vad Varo of Barsoom. It was first published in the magazine Amazing Stories Annual vol. 1, on July 15, 1927. The first book edition was published by A. C. McClurg in March, 1928.
Dejah Thoris is a fictional character and princess of the Martian city-state/empire of Helium in Edgar Rice Burroughs' series of Martian novels. She is the daughter of Mors Kajak, Jed (chieftain) of Lesser Helium, and the granddaughter of Tardos Mors, Jeddak of Helium. She is the love interest and later the wife of John Carter, an Earthman mystically transported to Mars, and subsequently the mother of their son Carthoris and daughter Tara. She plays the role of the conventional damsel in distress who must be rescued from various perils, but is also portrayed as a competent and capable adventurer in her own right, fully capable of defending herself and surviving on her own in the wastelands of Mars.
Lieut. Gullivar Jones: His Vacation is a novel by English writer Edwin Lester Arnold, combining elements of both fantasy and science fiction, first published in 1905. Its lukewarm reception led Arnold to stop writing fiction. It has since become his best-known work, and is considered important in the development of 20th century science fiction in that it is a precursor and likely inspiration to Edgar Rice Burroughs's classic A Princess of Mars (1917), which spawned the planetary romance and sword and planet genres. Ace Books reprinted Arnold's novel in paperback in 1964, retitling it Gulliver [sic] of Mars. A more recent Bison Books edition (2003) was issued as Gullivar of Mars, adapting the Ace title to Arnold's spelling.
"Mars: The Home Front" is a short story by American writer George Alec Effinger, published in the 1996 anthology War of the Worlds: Global Dispatches. It is a crossover between H. G. Wells' 1898 novel The War of the Worlds and Edgar Rice Burroughs' Barsoom series.
Synthetic Men of Mars is a science fantasy novel by American writer Edgar Rice Burroughs, the ninth of his Barsoom series. It was first published in the magazine Argosy Weekly in six parts in early 1939. The first complete edition of the novel was published in 1940 by Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc.
Llana of Gathol is a collection of four science fantasy stories by American writer Edgar Rice Burroughs, which were originally published in Amazing Stories in 1941. The first collected edition of Llana of Gathol was published in 1948 with an apparently new foreword. It is the penultimate book in the Barsoom series and the last to be published during Burroughs's lifetime.
John Carter of Mars is the eleventh and final book in the Barsoom series by American writer Edgar Rice Burroughs. It is not a novel, but rather a collection of two John Carter of Mars stories.
Barsoom is a fictional representation of the planet Mars created by American pulp fiction author Edgar Rice Burroughs. The first Barsoom tale was serialized as Under the Moons of Mars in pulp magazine The All-Story from February to July 1912 and published compiled as a novel as A Princess of Mars in 1917. It features John Carter, a late-19th-century American Confederate veteran who is mysteriously transported from Earth to the dying world of Mars where he meets and romances the beautiful Martian princess Dejah Thoris. Ten sequels followed over the next three decades, further extending his vision of Barsoom and adding other characters.
Sir Harold of Zodanga is a fantasy novella by American writer L. Sprague de Camp, part of the Harold Shea series he originated in collaboration with Fletcher Pratt and later continued with Christopher Stasheff. It was first published in paperback by Baen Books in de Camp and Stasheff's shared world anthology The Exotic Enchanter (1995). It was later reprinted together with the remainder of the de Camp/Pratt Harold Shea stories in the collection The Mathematics of Magic: The Enchanter Stories of L. Sprague de Camp and Fletcher Pratt (2007).
Princess of Mars is a 2009 direct-to-DVD science fiction film made by American independent studio The Asylum, loosely based on the Edgar Rice Burroughs novel A Princess of Mars (1917). The film's promotional art mentions how the original story inspired some elements of the James Cameron film Avatar (2009), but neither the credits nor promotional material mention Edgar Rice Burroughs. It is not to be confused with the higher-budget science fantasy film John Carter (2012), which is a direct adaptation of the novel. In the UK, the film was released with the title The Martian Colony Wars, and in other international markets with the title Avatar of Mars.
Thark or Tharks are a fictional tribe of fierce Green Martian warriors on the fictional planet of Barsoom, created by Edgar Rice Burroughs and first featured in the 1917 novel A Princess of Mars.
Ras Thavas is a fictional character created by Edgar Rice Burroughs in his 1927 novel The Master Mind of Mars. Within the narrative framework of the story he is an elderly Martian mad scientist of the city-state of Toonol, the "Master Mind" of the novel's title, skilled in the surgical transplantation of brains. He takes in protagonist Ulysses Paxton, an earthman newly arrived on the planet, and educates him in the ways of Barsoom, as Mars is known to its inhabitants.
Ulysses Paxton is a fictional character created by Edgar Rice Burroughs in his novel The Master Mind of Mars. Within the narrative framework of the novel, Captain Paxton, United States Army Infantry, is a fan of Burroughs' Barsoom series, and after having a shell blow off his legs during trench warfare in World War I, he finds himself drawn across the gulfs of space to Mars like John Carter before him. He sends Burroughs a first person manuscript of his adventures on the dying planet, which Burroughs publishes.
