The Barsoom Collection: John Carter Books 1-6
Barsoom #1-6 • Book 1
by Edgar Rice Burroughs, Christopher Ragland
Why You'll Love This
Before Star Wars, before Dune, before almost everything — there was John Carter, and Barsoom is where modern science fiction was born.
- Great if you want: pulpy planetary adventure with genuine mythological scope
- The experience: fast-moving and escapist — sword fights, strange worlds, relentless momentum
- The writing: Burroughs writes with breathless momentum — plot over prose, action over introspection
- Skip if: dated gender roles and colonial-era sensibilities will pull you out
About This Book
Mars has never felt so alive. This collection gathers the first six novels in Edgar Rice Burroughs' legendary Barsoom series, following Civil War veteran John Carter as he finds himself inexplicably transported to a dying red planet filled with warring civilizations, towering green Martians, and a princess worth crossing worlds for. Burroughs builds a world of genuine stakes — survival, loyalty, love, and conquest — and populates it with characters whose passions feel outsized in the best possible way. These are stories about what a person will sacrifice when they find something worth fighting for.
What makes reading these novels genuinely rewarding is Burroughs' relentless invention — he sustains the momentum across six books without the world ever feeling repetitive or exhausted. His prose has a breathless, forward-leaning quality that pulls you through chapters before you realize how far you've traveled. Each novel in the sequence expands the geography and mythology of Barsoom while deepening its internal logic. Having all six gathered in a single volume also lets readers experience the full arc of Carter's transformation, watching the series evolve from swashbuckling adventure into something richer and more considered.