Books › A Princess of Mars
A Princess of Mars
First published 1973 · 495 pages
A swashbuckling leap into a dying, savage world where chivalry and swordplay meet alien wonders.
What it feels like
Reading this foundational piece of science fantasy feels like stepping into a vivid, unironic dream of adventure. The narrative moves with a breathless, propulsive energy, sweeping you across the dead sea bottoms and ruined cities of a dying red planet. It is a world of pure spectacle and high melodrama, where every encounter is a matter of life, death, or eternal honor. The atmosphere is steeped in a sense of wondrous peril, balancing the brutal savagery of alien gladiatorial combat with the sweeping, earnest devotion of chivalric romance. The prose, while bearing the formal hallmarks of its era, never sacrifices momentum. It is a perfect escape for readers who delight in classic, larger-than-life pulp heroism, gravity-defying swordplay, and the sheer, unadulterated thrill of exploring a strange new world.
- Mood
- wondrous
- perilous
- sweeping
- alien
- Tone
- earnest
- heroic
- melodramatic
- adventurous
- Pace
- propulsive
- Themes
- chivalric romance · heroic destiny · clash of civilizations · survival in a hostile world
- The writing
- Grandiose and slightly archaic, the pulp-era prose prioritizes breathless momentum, vivid spectacle, and earnest declarations.
- The arc
- The journey shifts from disorienting survival in an alien wasteland to a triumphant, sweeping romance fueled by heroic devotion.
- Who it's for
- Readers who crave classic, unironic planetary romance filled with swordplay, exotic creatures, and larger-than-life heroism.
Content notes
- violence
- outdated cultural depictions
- abduction themes
About the book
I am a very old man; how old I do not know. Possibly I am a hundred, possibly more; but I cannot tell because I have never aged as other men, nor do I remember any childhood. So far as I can recollect I have always been a man, a man of about thirty. I appear today as I did forty years and more ago, and yet I feel that I cannot go on living forever; that some day I shall die the real death from which there is no resurrection. [Adventures of John Carter in Mars -- from the author of the Tarzan series.]
Description from Open Library.
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