John Carter of Mars to be made into a Pixar Movie
John Carter of Mars is a series of books written by Edgar Rice Burroughs. (He is also the creator of Tarzan.) The Mars Books by Burroughs are often categorized as science fiction and while this is true they really are a blend of science fiction, fantasy and pulp fantasy. The were written before the genre lines were well deliniated. After all a lof of the science fiction of that time was considered fantasy even though nowadays a lot of the stuff that was fantasized about is now a reality.
Epic fantasy has some really great roots and while we all know about Tolkien a lot of people don't realize that Edgar Rice Burroughs also was a very influential force in the early formation of the genre. One of his most famous series in this genre was the Mars series.
I read all these books many years ago and I went through my bookshelves looking for them. I managed to find a few. And while I don't remember a whole lot about the books I do remember that they were a lot of fun in a classic pulpy kind of way.
Anyway, This series of books has been picked up by Pixar to be made into at least one movie and rumor has it that there will be three movies which makes sense because there are three books in the JC series and a fourth book that is a concatenation of two novellas. The writer of the upcoming movie is Andrew Stanton who wrote Finding Nemo and Wall-E. YOu can read the announcement and a bit more about it on the Pixar Blog
Here are the John Carter books in their correct order: (Roll over the titles to learn more about them and to get pricing from amazon)
- A Princess of Mars (Mars (del Rey Books Numbered))
- Gods of Mars (Mars (del Rey Books Numbered))
- Warlord of Mars (Del Rey Books) (Mars (del Rey Books Numbered))
- John Carter of Mars (Barsoom Series #11) (Vintage Ballantine, U2041)
(two novellas: John Carter and the Giant of Mars, and, Skeleton Men of Jupiter. This two volume set is a little bit difficult to find but Leonaur Limited has is in a current hardcover version published in 2007 John Carter of Mars Vol. 6: John Carter & the Giants of Mars and Skeleton Men of Jupiter (John Carter of Mars)
Edgar Rice Burroughs did continue with his stories about Mars with these:
- Thuvia, Maid of Mars #4 (Ballantine Books # F770)
- Chessmen of Mars (Martian Tales of Edgar Rice Burroughs, N0 5)
- Fighting Man of Mars: (#7) (Martian Tales of Edgar Rice Burroughs, No 7)
- SWORDS OF MARS
- Synthetic Men of Mars (Martian Tales of Edgar Rice Burroughs, No 9)
- LLANA OF GATHOL (Mars (del Rey Books Numbered))
Published by Leonaur Limited (These are special two book volumes)
Because the books have been around such a long time and have gone through so many different publishings it can be difficult to sort through them and find exactly what you are looking for . But Leonaur Limited has solved this problem by publishing an updated complete set of them. Each book in their series has two volumes from the ERB series.
John Carter of Mars - volume 1 - The Princess of Mars & The Gods of Mars (John Carter of Mars)
Seeing as these books have been around for quite a while now there are quite a few different variations of them. I have sorted them out here so you can pick and choose which ones are right for you.
Penguin Classic and other versions of the Books
DelRay Books Mass Market Paperback
Kindle
Frazetta Covers
One of the things that made these books famous in modern times is that some of the book covers and even internal illustrations were created by Frank Frazettta. This kind of stuff leans very heavily toward collectible. Edgar Rice Burroughs and Frazetta make a perfect pairing and the curved rapier depicted is even a product you can buy.
