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A review by brettt
Under the Moons of Mars: New Adventures on Barsoom by John Joseph Adams
4.0
Ever since "The Skeleton Men of Jupiter" was published in Amazing Stories in 1943, writers have turned their hands towards continuing the adventures of Edgar Rice Burroughs' John Carter, the ageless Earthman battling his way across the fantastic world of Barsoom -- what its inhabitants called the planet Mars.
Some writers have simply re-worked the stories in their own fashion. Lin Carter moved out a ways from the sun and wrote about Jandar of Callisto, one of Jupiter's moons. Others took the characters and settings of Barsoom and attempted to re-imagine them with their own vision, like Andrew Stanton. Some, like Michael Moorcock's "Kane of Old Mars" trilogy, work well. Some, like Carter's and Stanton's, don't.
Under the Moons of Mars, a collection of short stories set on Barsoom and in some cases using Burroughs' own characters, has the same collection of hits and misses. Some of the writers attempt a straight-up homage to Burroughs; Joe R. Lansdale's "The Metal Men of Mars" does the best job at this, although Chris Claremont's "The Ghost That Haunts the Superstition Mountains" and Jonathan Maberry's "The Death Song of Dwar Guntha" are very close seconds. Others see about telling their own stories on Burroughs' world. Not as many of these succeed, but Robin Wasserman's "Vengeance of Mars" and Tobias Buckell's "A Tinker of Warhoon" stand out as two that do.
And some fail, badly. Peter S. Beagle takes Burroughs' best-known character, Tarzan of the Apes, and transports him to Mars. where he finds a John Carter who is more than a bit of a jerk and a Dejah Thoris who shows she's willing to be just as faithful to her husband Carter as Tarzan is to his wife, Jane Clayton. Overall, the collection, which was given the name used when Burrough's first Barsoom novel was serialized in All-Story magazine in 1912, offers some real gems to which one might wish the Burroughs estate would pay some attention in authorizing some new tales of those who rove the dead sea bottom of dying Mars, in spite of the absolute duds like Beagle's.
Original available here.
Some writers have simply re-worked the stories in their own fashion. Lin Carter moved out a ways from the sun and wrote about Jandar of Callisto, one of Jupiter's moons. Others took the characters and settings of Barsoom and attempted to re-imagine them with their own vision, like Andrew Stanton. Some, like Michael Moorcock's "Kane of Old Mars" trilogy, work well. Some, like Carter's and Stanton's, don't.
Under the Moons of Mars, a collection of short stories set on Barsoom and in some cases using Burroughs' own characters, has the same collection of hits and misses. Some of the writers attempt a straight-up homage to Burroughs; Joe R. Lansdale's "The Metal Men of Mars" does the best job at this, although Chris Claremont's "The Ghost That Haunts the Superstition Mountains" and Jonathan Maberry's "The Death Song of Dwar Guntha" are very close seconds. Others see about telling their own stories on Burroughs' world. Not as many of these succeed, but Robin Wasserman's "Vengeance of Mars" and Tobias Buckell's "A Tinker of Warhoon" stand out as two that do.
And some fail, badly. Peter S. Beagle takes Burroughs' best-known character, Tarzan of the Apes, and transports him to Mars. where he finds a John Carter who is more than a bit of a jerk and a Dejah Thoris who shows she's willing to be just as faithful to her husband Carter as Tarzan is to his wife, Jane Clayton. Overall, the collection, which was given the name used when Burrough's first Barsoom novel was serialized in All-Story magazine in 1912, offers some real gems to which one might wish the Burroughs estate would pay some attention in authorizing some new tales of those who rove the dead sea bottom of dying Mars, in spite of the absolute duds like Beagle's.
Original available here.