A Princess of Mars

John Carter is a former Confederate soldier and seasoned adventurer whose search for gold in the American Southwest takes an impossible turn. After seeking refuge from pursuing Apaches in a mysterious cave, Carter finds himself inexplicably transported to Mars-a dying world its inhabitants call Barsoom.Under the lesser gravity of Mars, Carter discovers that his Earth-born strength and agility give him extraordinary abilities. But survival on Barsoom demands more than physical power. Captured by the towering, four-armed Green Martians of Thark, he enters a harsh warrior culture where compassion is often treated as weakness and status must be earned through courage and combat. Among his captors, Carter encounters the formidable Tars Tarkas and begins to understand a civilization far more complex than it first appears.His fate changes again when the Tharks capture Dejah Thoris, the beautiful and fiercely intelligent princess of Helium. Carter is immediately drawn to her, and his determination to protect her pulls him into the rivalries of Martian cities, tribes, and armies. What begins as a struggle for survival becomes an adventure across a world of ancient civilizations, strange creatures, aerial warships, deadly arenas, and vast desert landscapes.As Carter becomes increasingly entangled in the conflicts of Barsoom, his growing love for Dejah Thoris gives him something greater than survival to fight for. Alliances are forged and broken, armies clash, and Carter must repeatedly risk his life in a world where honor and loyalty can be as dangerous as any weapon.First published in book form in 1917 after appearing earlier in serialized form, A Princess of Mars introduced readers to Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Barsoom and helped establish the planetary romance as a major form of early science fiction. Burroughs combines swashbuckling adventure, speculative imagination, warfare, romance, and encounters with alien cultures in a story whose influence can be traced through generations of science-fiction and fantasy adventure.Fast-moving and unabashedly imaginative, A Princess of Mars is the beginning of John Carter’s adventures on Barsoom-a romance of two worlds in which an Earthman must decide what he is willing to risk for the strange planet that has become his home and the princess he has come to love.