In the early 1900’s a lowly pencil sharpener salesman named Burroughs took up the mantle of being a writer.  He went on to write some of the greatest science fiction in modern America.  Edgar Rice Burroughs wrote in a style similar to the varied and copious pulp magazines of the day.  You may know his most famous work a story of an abandoned English youth raised by apes and named Tarzan.  What most people are not familiar with is his science fiction epic known as the Barsoom series.

Burroughs wrote many stories about Earthly adventurers transported to various planets, lost islands, and into the interior of a hollow earth.  Barsoom was the name he called Mars.  The character he created that traveled there was named John Carter.  These stories of a Virginian that is somehow projected from our planet to the dead seas of a dying world only to find life not unlike life on our own world excited my very being.  It sticks with me even today.

Andrew Stanton has been picked by Disney to turn my beloved Martian Chronicles into a half live action, half animated feature length film.  While I will reserve judgment on that venture until I have seen the final product, I strongly suggest that you do yourself a favor and pick up the 10 books in the series and settle in to explore a rich, deep sci-fi experience based largely on the then remarkable ideas popularized by astronomer Percival Lowell.

You won’t be disappointed.