Intro: ” A Princess of Mars ” by Edgar Rice Burroughs is a science fiction/adventure novel originally published in 1912 . The version I got is on an E-book.

Summary : A former Confederate soldier ( John Carter ) dies and appears on Mars . How ? It doesn’t matter , you saw the title ,bought the darn book , and neither the author nor the audience have time for that . John Carter gets captured at least twice , becomes a chieftain thrice over , domesticates martian dogs , learns martian language , learns telepathy , punches a white space ape to death , becomes a gladiator , gets adopted by a green martian , saves a red princess ( Dejah Thoris ) twice , has a kid with said princess , and dies again . Wow ! That’s not even all of it .

Quote: ” I do not believe that I am made of the stuff which constitutes heroes , because , in all of the hundreds of instances that my voluntary acts that have placed me face to face with death , I cannot recall a single one where any alternative step to that I took occured to me until many hours later . “

Review : Have you ever watched ” Star Wars” and said to yourself if only everyone was tougher/wearing less clothes ? Well, this is the novel for you . The action scenes are exciting , the dialogue is top notch , the main character is a badass , and the side characters are pretty fun too . Would pay full price !

Sidebar : ” A Princess of Mars ” and ” Star Wars ” . I had heard in the past that George Lucas was inspired partially by this novel to make ” Star Wars ” and thought as a fan it would be fun to point out some of the similarities I noticed . A rebel on a planet with two suns ends up fighting in a civil war after saving a princess whose ship was shot down on a peace mission ( A New Hope ) . The tendency to fight with blades even though they are surrounded by advanced guns ( all of them ) , there’s a military rank referred to as jed / jeddak ( close enough to jedi for me ) . John Carter fights monsters and martians in an arena ( Attack of the Clones ) . He fights a four armed swordsman who can also use their arms to crawl on the ground ( Revenge of the Sith ) . At one point he disguises himself as a warlord’s palace guard to save a scantily clad princess ( Return of the Jedi ) . Fights a giant white space ape ( Empire Strikes Back ) . Has a score by John Williams ( Okay , I made that one up ) . This one might be a stretch but George Lucas was raised as a Methodist and I’ve got it in my head that it’s not a coincidence that the main character of the original ” Star Wars” trilogy happens to be named Luke … the gospel right before the gospel of John .