Barsoom: Mapping the Mythic Mars - Paperback

by Oberon Zell (Author), Steve Warner (Author), Ralph Aeschliman (Cartographer)

Over one hundred years ago, in 1911, Edgar Rice Burroughs (the creator of Tarzan) introduced an astonished readership to the adventures of John Carter, a Civ-il War soldier from Virginia who, in 1866, found himself trans-ported to the planet Mars. Or, as the natives called it, Barsoom. The first novel was A Princess of Mars, and it was followed by ten more books over the next 30 years; plus countless comic books, and in 2012, a spectacular Disney movie, John Carter.

Enthralled readers encountered the incomparable Martian Princess Dejah Thoris; four-armed giant Green Men; hideous blue Plant Men; Thoats, Calots, Banths, Apts, White Apes and other multi-legged Martian beasts. Burroughs' Barsoom was a dying world of ancient ruined cities, dry seabeds, desert-spanning canals, towering mountains, polar ice caps, dense forests, and under-ground rivers.

These were the first sci-fi adventure tales ever written that took place on another world, with alien races, civilizations, and creatures-and they pre-ceded and inspired every subsequent extra-planetary adventure series from Flash Gordon to Star Trek and Star Wars.

But despite locating the adventures of John Carter on the canal-covered Mars depicted by Victorian astronomers, Burroughs never provided a map showing the locations of his Barsoomian cities and other features. Over the past century, many fans have tried to compile such a map, but none have truly succeeded. Until now.

Painstakingly referencing clues in all eleven books, plus astronomical observations of the Red Planet spanning a hundred years, noted historian and cartographer Oberon Zell has created the definitive map of Burroughs' Barsoom. This book details that process with three dozen colorful maps and other illustrations, a history of Barsoom over the past million years, and a Gazetteer for all locations mentioned in the novels.