Back From Mars

I feel like I have been stuck on the Red Planet.

Earlier this year I saw the movie; John Carter of Mars.

I really liked it.  It was odd and the characters appealed to me.  

My husband wondered why I had not heard of the book.  

I do like sci-fi but this was news to me.

The John Carter of Mars series was written by Edgar Rice Burroughs.  He wrote many block buster books including Tarzan...so in a way, I did know about him, just never connected the author's name to the stories.

So I made the declaration....I will read the John Carter of Mars book!

Damn.

There are eleven John Carter books.

And they are not short reads.

So all of August, September and October was about going to bed and reading about John Carter.

Many a morning I woke up mumbling "I have got to get off Mars."

Let me sum up the eleven books.

John Carter gets captured.

Sword fight, sword flight.

Sent to the pits.

Sees the girls, wins the girl.

Becomes a Prince.

Girl gets kidnapped.

Sword fight, air flight, bizarre scientists.

Finds the girl.

Kidnapped.

In the pits.

Ras Thavas is the craziest scientist invented. I can't get him out of my head.  Literally.

Sword fight, sword flight.

Mean Jeddak.

Weird science.  Weird creatures.

Cannibalism

Brains are transferable.

Finds the girl.

Loses the girl.

Mean Jeddak. 

Back in the pits.

Resistance is futile,

Sword fight.  Flight.

Airship home.

Make friends with weird scientist.

Girl gets kidnapped.

Find the girl.

Lose the girl.

Good lord back in the pits.

Swordfight.

Red men, green men, the black pirates, white apes.

Synthetic men, ghosts, brains.

Assassins,

Girl goes missing.

Plane crashes.

Sword fight.

In the book Mars has the coolest technology, amazing medical options, unbelievable flying ships, clean air technology and many many other interesting contraptions.

All these cool things from the mind of the author who published the first story in 1917.

Too bad he didn't predict blackberries. Things would have gone a lot better for John Carter if the author had come up with an instant communication system.

So I am happy to finally be off Mars, or as they say in the books, good bye Barsoom.

Instead, I am back with Napoleon on St. Helena.