A Princess of Mars

What a dreamy guy
kind to beasties, quick to kill
calls you his princess.

Hmm... I gotta stop into these classics with high expectations, especially one with over a century of difference in values. To be perfectly honest, I found the John Carter movie to be much more entertaining and much more believable than the book (obviously, since the movie is much more recent). And because of the movie, I guess I was expecting something else.

I won't judge the scientific oddities, of which there are quite a few – radium, the incredible properties of the eighth and ninth rays of light, the terraforming of an entire planet within a one single plant, distance fallacies, and the somewhat illogical ideas regarding ground-to-air and air-to-air warfare.

What I found to be rather disappointing about the book's plot is that it's entirely created and conceived solely around the purpose of putting a human on Mars and making him moon over a Martian woman. All the plot hooks and events are engineered for that sole purpose – fortunate coincidences are around every corner – with implausible situations chalked away to sheer luck, sheer prowess, or simply left unexplained and ignored.

For example: How the heck did he go to Mars in the first place? The movie explained it. The book didn't even attempt to – even the protagonist simply accepts that he's on Mars. There are a lot of such details that are just glossed over. I guess it comes from its roots as a serial publication rather than being a novel right from the start.

His oh-so-manly physical prowess (I'm a guy and I cringe every time I read his self-praise) is also quite annoying. Telling the reader how good he knows he is, before performing an action is downright bad – doing it the other way round might've made it more tolerable.

I'm definitely taking the book way too seriously and from a way too modern outlook. It's obviously more of a planetary romance with bits of sci fi and bits of a primitiveness thrown in, as opposed to the action thriller the movie made it into. It's lacking in world-building, filled with bland, stereotyped and rather uninteresting characters (protagonist and princess included), and a plot littered with coincidences and holes.

Why two stars then? What I did like about book are two things: The pacing is great. There are no dragging moments in the book. It just zips from one incident to another. Reading the book, despite my dislikes, is quite a pleasure. The pulpiness of the plot is in there in full and the prose is not overly flowery, making for an easy and quick read.

I recognize that this was originally published in 1912, according to wikipedia, but it was one of the worst sci-fi books I've read. Maybe it was revolutionary and it exciting when it came out, but certainly hits just about every bad trope that sci-fi has become known for . . .