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Barsoom
A Guide to Barsoom
A Guide to Barsoom, The Mars of Edgar Rice Burroughs, John Flint Roy, Ballantine Books, 1976 1st paperback. BB# 345-24722-1-175, first paperback. Cover illustration by Boris Vallejo, interior illustrations by Neal MacDonald, 200 pages. Very Good. Edge wear and light soiling to all panels, strong cover with one blemish over the first two letters in the “fully illustrated” slug on the lower inside edge. Spine has light crease but it not sunned or faded. Clean pages.
200 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published September 12, 1976
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
August 20, 2023
I'm very happy to give this book, first published in 1976, a full 5/5 stars. I'm a lifelong fan of Edgar Rice Burroughs (1875-1950)-- since I was a child-- and became acquainted with ERB's most famous creation, Tarzan, through films and comics in the 50s. Then, while in grade school, I was able to acquire the 40 cent paperback books that were being published. It was Edgar Rice Burroughs who motivated me to read and helped to make me a reader!
While I've always preferred Tarzan to John Carter of Mars, I know many ERB fans believe his 11-book Mars series is superior to his 24-book Tarzan series. The first book of the Mars series, "A Princess of Mars," was published in 1912 (in "The All-Story" magazine) and is considered to be one of the true classics of science fiction.
This book is a great reference work for the series. It includes the geography of "Barsoom" and a biographical dictionary of all the characters in the series as well as a general glossary. There's information on the religions and customs of Barsoom and also the planet's flora and fauna. And I most enjoyed the biographical sketch of "Edgar Rice Burroughs," the nephew of John Carter, who received the stories of the heroic Earthman's adventures on Mars/Barsoom.
A definite must for fans of Edgar Rice Burroughs, compiled by John Flint Roy (1913-1987).
While I've always preferred Tarzan to John Carter of Mars, I know many ERB fans believe his 11-book Mars series is superior to his 24-book Tarzan series. The first book of the Mars series, "A Princess of Mars," was published in 1912 (in "The All-Story" magazine) and is considered to be one of the true classics of science fiction.
This book is a great reference work for the series. It includes the geography of "Barsoom" and a biographical dictionary of all the characters in the series as well as a general glossary. There's information on the religions and customs of Barsoom and also the planet's flora and fauna. And I most enjoyed the biographical sketch of "Edgar Rice Burroughs," the nephew of John Carter, who received the stories of the heroic Earthman's adventures on Mars/Barsoom.
A definite must for fans of Edgar Rice Burroughs, compiled by John Flint Roy (1913-1987).
July 27, 2008
This is a companion to ERBs Martian books. John Flint Roy went through and listed in encyclopedia style the names and places and so on that he extracted from the Martian books. If you're a big fan of the Barsoom stories, then it's a handy little companion. Anyone who would want to write fan fiction set on Barsoom would find it indispensable.
December 14, 2020
This is an encyclopedic list of all things Barsoomian; all of the characters, places, cultures, events, that Edgar Rice Burroughs mentioned in his Martian series of stories. It's amazingly thorough and minutely detailed and was obviously a time-consuming labor of fannish love for the author. It's well-illustrated and my Ballantine edition has a very nice Vallejo cover. A good bet for John Carter fans, and indispensable for tourists in Helium.
January 19, 2016
This book is an excellent addition to the collection of any fan of Edgar Rice Burroughs' John Carter of Mars books. I've had the paperback version for several years but it looked too much like it would be like trying to read a dictionary. I picked up the ebook version and decided to give it a try.
One chapter is a long list of characters' names with descriptions. I thought it would be pretty boring but it was great fun to read! It took my mind back into the books that I enjoyed so much and to how the characters were connected to each other throughout the book series.
The last chapter was the best. It is a biography of a fictional Edgar Rice Burroughs. He's the one that is John Carter's nephew. He knew Tarzan, Lord Greystoke and Jason Gridley. The biography takes the fictional ERB through all of his novels until he's well over a 100 years old!!
It's unbelievable how much research the author did to write this book. A must read for the ERB fan and to the John Carter of Mars fan in particular!
One chapter is a long list of characters' names with descriptions. I thought it would be pretty boring but it was great fun to read! It took my mind back into the books that I enjoyed so much and to how the characters were connected to each other throughout the book series.
The last chapter was the best. It is a biography of a fictional Edgar Rice Burroughs. He's the one that is John Carter's nephew. He knew Tarzan, Lord Greystoke and Jason Gridley. The biography takes the fictional ERB through all of his novels until he's well over a 100 years old!!
It's unbelievable how much research the author did to write this book. A must read for the ERB fan and to the John Carter of Mars fan in particular!
July 13, 2019
My paperback copy of this book dates from 1980 and has a Michael Whelan cover that I think might be taken from one of the Burroughs books. The book looks to be out-of-print now, but I don't know that it's been superseded by anything better and you can easily get it used cheaply here or elsewhere.
The book is organized into several chapters, each of them offering a guide to various aspects of the Barsoomian world created by Edgar Rice Burroughs in 11 books published from 1912-64, and all previously published in magazine form. I think the chapter format works fairly well, given the small paperback edition that I believe is the only way this book was published, though I tend to usually prefer a strict alphabetical "encyclopedic" format in such exercises. In any case, the chapters are:
I - A Brief History of pre-Carter Barsoom
II - A Geography of Barsoom
III - A Biography of Barsoom
IV - The Flora and Fauna of Barsoom
V - Measurements on Barsoom
VI - The Languages, Religions and Customs of Barsoom
VII - A General Barsoomian Glossary
VIII - Quotations, Proverbs and Expletives
IX - Barsoomian Science and Invention
X - Through Space to Barsoom?
XI - "Edgar Rice Burroughs": A Brief Biographical Space
There are maps in sections II, though they are just simple hemispherical ones with little detail, and aren't well reproduced and are too small to be terribly useful. Similarly the illustrations scattered throughout by Neal MacDonald are really lovely, but just don't come off well in this format. I would have liked to see a chronology of the events in the books included in section I. Section XI is a bio of the "Edgar Rice Burroughs" to whom most of the stories in the books are told, with asides about his activities involving Tarzan, David Innes, Carson Napier, etc. It's rather amusing (the "real" Burroughs of the books is last heard from in 1969 at the age of 114!) and puts one to mind of Philip Jose Farmer's "Wold Newton" concept, stitching together all kinds of fictional characters with vast lifespans into one consistent literary universe. The other sections are all reasonably complete, I think; few if any characters or concepts of any importance in the series aren't touched on.
On the whole then, small problems in part having to do with the cheapness of the mass-market paperback production aside, a valuable book for all Barsoomian fanatics and Burroughsians.
The book is organized into several chapters, each of them offering a guide to various aspects of the Barsoomian world created by Edgar Rice Burroughs in 11 books published from 1912-64, and all previously published in magazine form. I think the chapter format works fairly well, given the small paperback edition that I believe is the only way this book was published, though I tend to usually prefer a strict alphabetical "encyclopedic" format in such exercises. In any case, the chapters are:
I - A Brief History of pre-Carter Barsoom
II - A Geography of Barsoom
III - A Biography of Barsoom
IV - The Flora and Fauna of Barsoom
V - Measurements on Barsoom
VI - The Languages, Religions and Customs of Barsoom
VII - A General Barsoomian Glossary
VIII - Quotations, Proverbs and Expletives
IX - Barsoomian Science and Invention
X - Through Space to Barsoom?
XI - "Edgar Rice Burroughs": A Brief Biographical Space
There are maps in sections II, though they are just simple hemispherical ones with little detail, and aren't well reproduced and are too small to be terribly useful. Similarly the illustrations scattered throughout by Neal MacDonald are really lovely, but just don't come off well in this format. I would have liked to see a chronology of the events in the books included in section I. Section XI is a bio of the "Edgar Rice Burroughs" to whom most of the stories in the books are told, with asides about his activities involving Tarzan, David Innes, Carson Napier, etc. It's rather amusing (the "real" Burroughs of the books is last heard from in 1969 at the age of 114!) and puts one to mind of Philip Jose Farmer's "Wold Newton" concept, stitching together all kinds of fictional characters with vast lifespans into one consistent literary universe. The other sections are all reasonably complete, I think; few if any characters or concepts of any importance in the series aren't touched on.
On the whole then, small problems in part having to do with the cheapness of the mass-market paperback production aside, a valuable book for all Barsoomian fanatics and Burroughsians.
June 17, 2025
Unsurpassed as the best written and most complete guide to Burroughs’ Barsoom, this is a must read for the fans and those who want to discover this amazingly complex and wonderful fictional depuction of Mars.
July 12, 2016
Read January 1979.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews