Gods of Mars (Paperback) | Released: 30 Sep 2012

This collector-quality edition includes the complete text of the second of Edgar Rice Burroughs' "Martian Novels" in a freshly edited and newly typeset edition, commemorating the 100th anniversary of his first published story. With a generous 6x9 page size, this Summit Classic edition is printed on hefty 60# bright white paper with a fully laminated cover featuring an original full color design. Additional material collected and presented for Burroughs' fans, new or old, are an original retrospective essay commenting on the life, work, and widespread and lasting influence of the author, a new and original biographical sketch of Burroughs' life, and a detailed bibliography of his work. In this, the second of his tales of Barsoom, Burroughs returns to the romance between John Carter, mysteriously and unexpectedly returned to Earth at the end of a "Princess of Mars", and Dejah Thoris. A decade after being torn away from his family on Barsoom, Carter is once again transported by mysterious forces to the red planet and, materializing in the Valley Dor, where Barsoomians make a last pilgrimage as life nears its end, finds himself thrust into a weird adventure involving the truth behind Martian beliefs in the afterlife and the Gods of Mars. In Edgar Rice Burroughs' trademark style, the former Confederate officer is thrown into a series of non-stop adventures at breakneck pace, discovering a lost race of Barsoomians and the awful secrets behind the Gods of Mars while battling Martian men and beasts, finding adversaries on seemingly every page and discovering perfidy and treachery among both allies and enemies while leading armies and airborne navies in battle in the course of this epic adventure. "Barsoom" is the native name for the Mars imagined by Edgar Rice Burroughs, a dying world whose oceans have gone dry and whose atmosphere is dissipating, precariously maintained by a massive atmosphere plant, a world where a race of giant green men with four arms roam dry seabeds and vast ancient ruins mounted on reptilian steeds, while a race of coppery-skinned red men maintains an oddly barbaric culture and scientific civilization in sprawling cities and travel in flying cars. If any of this sounds vaguely familiar but you've never read what has over the years become known as Edgar Rice Burroughs' science fiction "Martian series" it's not surprising. Burroughs didn't "invent" planetary romance, lost civilizations, islands populated by dinosaurs and primitive men or any of the kinds of fiction he wrote. But he literally re-invented adventure fiction across the board and his indelible stamp on the work of writers, filmmakers, television producers and scientists is still apparent a hundred years after his first published story. Burroughs is known the world over as the creator of Tarzan, the Ape Man. Tarzan became a cultural phenomenon almost immediately upon his appearance, but before Tarzan there was John Carter of Mars. Burroughs' first published work originally appeared in serial form with the title "Under the Moons of Mars" in 1912. Like many of Burroughs' pulp magazine serials, the story was later published in book form by Chicago publisher A. C. McClurg. The original McClurg version re-titled the story as "A Princess of Mars," the name by which it has been known ever since. Burroughs' first three Martian novels, "A Princess of Mars", "The Gods of Mars" and "Warlord of Mars" form a cohesive trilogy that will ultimately leave the mighty John Carter as the most powerful warlord astride a fantastic, savage planet. Summit Classic Press editions of these three novels are available separately in a handsome matched set. They are also available from Summit Classic Press in a single large format omnibus edition titled "John Carter, Warlord of Mars," ISBN-978-1475021660.