Talk:A Princess of Mars

Fantasy

I removed a sentence from the intro that read "Though considered science fiction at the time of it's publication, A Princess of Mars, due it's innacuracies in atronomical information, is today regarded as pure fantasy".[1] As far as I can tell, this is total nonsense. It is contradictory with the first sentence ("...is a science fiction novel..."; if the genre was not absolutely clear then it would be noted further down and discussed). I do not know of anyone who regards Princess as anything but science fiction, nor could I find any such examples. Certainly, the book is not hard science fiction by any means, and would rate fairly low on the Kheper Realism scale, but that does not mean that it is considered fantasy. Science fantasy, maybe. My point is that I don't believe that this article should make judgements on the book's content. It should summarise the feelings of certain people and/or groups, but doing that requires citations, and not just broad generalisations about what it is "regarded" as.--SB | T 08:54, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Tars Tarkas

It seems like Tars Tarkas is a major character who deserves mention in the summary--particularly since he shows up without explanation as an allusion in a video game. Nareek 00:15, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Westerns?

This passage appears in several different places in the text, worded almost identically each time:

The novel also shares a number of features of Westerns in the inclusion of desert landscapes, women taken captive and a final confrontation with the antagonist.

Umm, none of these features are exclusive to Westerns. Desert landscapes also appear in 1001 Nights, Lawrence of Arabia, and adventure tales of the French Foreign Legion such as Beau Geste, unless you are suggesting that they are all Westerns. The other two "features" are common to all forms of adventure fiction. The "source" posted for these statements is The Student Companion to James Fenimore Cooper, which would seem to have nothing whatever to say about the work of either Edgar Rice Burroughs or Westerns. I think that a more reliable and relevant source is required to back up this statement, which would seem to be original research by someone who hasn't given very much thought to the subject. Unfortunately, the same passage exists at least once and usually more than once in every related Wikipedia article. 12.233.146.130 (talk) 23:50, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

I would invite other editors to check the reference - the Google Books scan includes the cited passage and determine wether this anonymous editors concerns are justified; if so this claim can go. I agree the reference work is not ideal, but then Burroughs is not the subject of the kind of wide literary analysis more mainstream writers might be, so it can be necessary to use more varied sources to construct an article on him. Eg, some of the reference works cited here are academic studies on pulp fiction or machismo and racism, not specifically on Burroughs. I have removed the original research tag from the article in the meantime however, while the ideas here may not be felt to be worthy of inclusion in this article (although research into Burrough's life and writing would suggest otherwise, I feel personally), it would seem erroneous to call something cited from a published reference work original research - these are not my ideas, they are ideas presented by writer published by a non-vanity publishing house amid an extended passage of analysis of Burrough's works in a book on a wider topic .Mesmacat (talk) 23:00, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Dead link

During several automated bot runs the following external link was found to be unavailable. Please check if the link is in fact down and fix or remove it in that case!

• http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/film/news/e3i45a4bf33efc179178ca1aefbace6b9ce
  • In Dejah Thoris on 2011-03-17 05:57:00, 404 Not Found
  • In A Princess of Mars on 2011-06-20 02:21:54, 404 Not Found

--JeffGBot (talk) 02:22, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

Released in 1912 or 1917

I noticed some conflicting accounts of when the book was first published. The article currently says it was published in 1917, but I'm also seeing [[2]] it as a 1912 release. I normally work on film articles, but I picked up on this while working on the John Carter (film) article. Perhaps this should be changed. --TravisBernard (talk) 15:04, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

• It was published in magazine form in 1912, and 1917 in book form (the article goes into detail about this). I've seen both dates also. It is the same with "Tarzan of the Apes." Published in magazine form in 1912, and in book form in (iirc) 1914. Sir Rhosis (talk) 11:33, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

First book?

This page calls The Outlaw of Torn Burrough's first book. That page calls this book his first one. Does anyone know which it is? According to the dates listed, this one was first serialized in 1912, and published as a book in 1914, while the other one was serialized in 1914 and published in 1927, so it sounds like Princess of Mars is earlier. But maybe the other one was written first? -- Walt Pohl (talk) 09:46, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

• I've corrected. APoM is indeed his first book. Sir Rhosis (talk) 14:30, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

the Outlaw of Torn was written after POm was accepted for magazine publication. It was rejected for magazines. It didn't come out as a book till much later after many rejections Tarzanlordofthejungle (talk) 09:41, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Image

Why was the image of the original publication removed? The image was appropriate to the article and public domain, and the IP user that removed it left no edit summary. Euchrid (talk) 05:35, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

Oviparous?

Question: If John Carter and Deja Thoris can successfully mate, doesn't that make the Barsoomian races mammals? If so, are they a special case of monotremes rather than just oviparous? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.171.69.68 (talk) 15:49, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

Do any further books in the series explain the following mysteries?

1. What is John Carter? He's clearly not a human. His agelessness matches that of the Martians - is he perhaps originally of Martian stock?

2. What happened to the two guys at the atmosphere factory? Clearly there was foul play involved. If one had died from natural causes that's understandable, but they both die at once, and I recall the second guy is described as having been mutilated. Did the on-edge, kind of crazy guy who'd hosted John Carter end up doing a murder-suicide for some insane reason? Or was some other person or force, for whatever reason, trying to end life on Mars?

3. What was the old Indian woman in the cave, with the skeletons? A witch, presumably. But I mean - what does that mean? Had she sent people to Mars before? Is that even what happened to Carter? She sent him to Mars?

None of these things make any sense. It kind of adds a charm to the book, that there's so much in it that makes no sense and is just never given even the slightest explanation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:243:C100:B9D5:D0A4:7871:8AC4:3341 (talk) 01:41, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

None of these three mysteries are explained in any of the other books. Sorry.

1. Burroughs seems to take it for granted that Carter is human, despite his being able to father children with Dejah Thoris, who as a Martian is presumably a member of an alien species.

2. The atmosphere factory mystery is never followed up on.

3. The Indian woman is also never followed up on, though she seems to be there primarily for atmosphere, and does not appear vital to the Mars trip. Carter's subsequent trips do not depend on her, nor does Ulysses Paxton's later trip to Mars (which follows a pattern similar to Carter's) in The Master Mind of Mars. Carter does say in later books that he has figured out and mastered the way to make the trip, even down to taking clothes along -- but he never explains it for us. And for some reason he never uses it to get to any planets other than Earth (when he later travels to a moon of Mars and to Jupiter, it's by physical means).

4. Another unexplained mystery is, since Carter leaves his Earthly body behind when he goes to Mars, where does the obviously physical form in which he interacts with the Martians come from?

There has been much fan speculation on all these points, but no conclusive solutions.

BPK (talk) 16:07, 26 August 2015 (UTC)