I have been reading a lot of science fiction recently, mainly books from the seventies/eighties era of the genre such as Philip K. Dick's Valis and William Gibson's Neuromancer which are in the more brainy/cyberpunk spectrum of things. With the announcement that Disney/Pixar are now in production of the live-action John Carter of Mars movie, I decided to check out Edgar Rice Burroughs' pulp classic myself, having heard so much about it over the years (and having heard it inspired my favourites Flash Gordon, Star Wars and Avatar).
This one is surely a classic! An American civil war veteran called John Carter wakes up on Mars, a planet no so barren as the Viking probes found it to be (hey, come on - this came out in 1912 when people thought there were canals on Mars!)
He meets the green Martians (known as Tharks), fights in epic battles, explores ancient cities and to top it all off wins the hand of a beautiful princess called Dejah Thoris. This is certainly more of a swashbuckling fantasy romance than hardcore science fiction, but hey it's supposed to be pulp fun - a nice and easy read, I had great fun with it and may yet check out the sequels. Let's just hope that the live action film does it justice on it's release in 2012!
No comments:
Post a Comment