A Princess of Mars

Edit 2/12:
I finished the book over this last week, and although I really enjoyed it a lot, I have to report that "Love-Making on Mars" was extremely disappointing.

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This week I read “A Princess of Mars”. Actually, I admit that I only got a chance to read half of it, but I’m pretty eager to finish it (the chapter I left off on is called “Love-Making on Mars”, so of course I’m going to keep reading).

It was a science fiction novel with many of the genre markers of such. For one, obviously, it takes place on Mars. The story follows John Carter (of Virginia) on his adventures on Mars, where he interacts with (and talks about in great detail) the different extraterrestrial life forms he finds there. A huge portion of the story (at least in the first half that I read) is made up of Carter explaining the culture, language, customs, and history of the Martians he meets to the reader.

“A Princess of Mars” also is a story about an almost super-human alpha-male hero, who kills terrible Martian monsters and rescues beautiful Martian women (and wins plenty of ugly women to serve him as well). John Carter, thanks to the lesser gravity on Mars, finds that his strength and agility are greatly increased, so that he is able to fight with (and earn the respect of) the weaker Martians with ease. He is also extremely intelligent, able to learn the Martian language and warfare extremely quickly. I’m not sure if this kind of superhero is so much a genre marker of science fiction, but of adventure stories in general.

Actually, I can see how the super-heroic John Carter, with is amazing physical abilities, intelligence, and ability to win the hottest woman on all of Mars, would be extremely popular amongst on audience of (probably) nerdy boys. He is the type of character I could imagine readers would wish to be like (I wouldn’t mind being able to pick up hot Martian ladies, either). It’s an interesting contrast to the “cyberpunk female” that we’ve discussed in previous classes: a badass, alpha-female coupled with a weaker beta-male. Still, both archetypes serve the same purpose of fulfilling a reader’s fantasy, either in a character they’d like to be like or a character they’d like to be with.

Even though it’s pretty cheesy and silly, I’m really enjoying this book, and I’ll definitely keep reading it (at least to finish off “Love-Making on Mars”).