Jane Carver of Waar

Waar, Book 1

By: Nathan Long

Narrated by: Dina Pearlman

Length: 12 hrs

Publisher's summary

Jane Carver is nobody's idea of a space princess. A hard-ridin', hard-lovin' biker chick and ex-Airborne Ranger, Jane is as surprised as anyone else when, on the run from the law, she ducks into the wrong cave at the wrong time - and wakes up butt-naked on an exotic alien planet light-years away from everything she's ever known. Waar is a savage world of four-armed tiger-men, sky-pirates, slaves, gladiators, and purple-skinned warriors in thrall to a bloodthirsty code of honor and chivalry. Caught up in a disgraced nobleman's quest to win back the hand of a sexy alien princess, Jane encounters bizarre wonders and dangers unlike anything she ever ran into back home. Then again, Waar has never seen anyone like Jane before.

Both a loving tribute and scathing parody of the swashbuckling space fantasies of yore, Jane Carver of Waar introduces an unforgettable new science-fiction heroine. Nathan Long is a screen and prose writer with two movies, a Saturday-morning adventure series, and several TV episodes to his name. His official website is: www.sabrepunk.com.

©2012 Nathan Long (P)2012 Audible, Inc.

Nice turnabout on gender stereotypes, and funny!

haha... what a pleasant surprise! I haven't read Burrough's book, of which, apparently, this story is reminiscent. I don't know that I will now either - I really like the female main character and am pretty sure that if there was a male character acting and talking the way Jane does, it would drive me nuts. Sexism and women as objects is much more acceptable when it is turned on its head. Jane being the way she is mocks all those stories where the woman is there just to be rescued and as a sexual prize.

And the story is funny! Of course the setting and characters are a little on the thin side...but it is a pulp sci-fi story after all.

It was a bit formulaic in the plotting: character goes to A, does X, then to B and does Y, etc... but the humor and the freshness of Jane's non-feminine and yet still female attitudes more than made up for any sense of writing 101. There was just a tiny bit of moralizing - mostly to do with gender stereotypes - which was more entertaining than lecture-y. I bought the next book too.

There is no sex, the violence is not graphic, and... Well, I forget if there was any swearing, I don't think there was though. The narration is very good.

Fast, Fun, Fast, Unexpected and Gripping!

What happens to bike chicks, who are former Airborne, who get transported to a planet with low gravity? This story is part Biker Chick, and part Chivalry, and has 6 legged purple leopard people!

First this is an adult adventure - not even close to PG-13. My goodness it is narrated in the 1st person by a that Airborne trained biker chick. Lots a crazy wild sexual thoughts and plenty of sexual action. She is hard to control as she is tough, well-trained and because of the low gravity, she can jump straight up several stories.

Lots of fun adventures at an incredible pace. The pace is truly amazing -- you have to keep up. It was one GREAT FUN SCI-FI book that uses only a little sci-fi and instead uses well-developed characters from another world to carry it along.

Just be warned, it contains hard-care vulgarity in spots. But in trade you get fantastic characters that amazingly face-paced story!

Like a knockoff but a GOOD knockoff.

Any additional comments?

This book is like a knockoff of "John Carter Of Mars" but it is a VERY GOOD knockoff. The main character feels real and her choices feel more real. Its also more edgey and modern than John Carter which may make it easier to read because of the generation gap. The next book is already out in print and I hope audible will have it soon.

Unexpectedly marvelous off world biker chick story

This was a surprisingly good book that I thoroughly enjoyed.

The author authentically captures the perspective of a tough woman (ex-Army Ranger and self-proclaimed big biker chick), who by chance is swept through a portal to the feudalistic world of Waar where she survives one hair raising adventure after another. Throughout it all she manages to maintain a hilarious, gritty and often sarcastic inner voice full of off-the-wall similes that cracked me up.

The narrator not only captures the voice of this tough biker chick, she manages to distinguish the voices of the other characters so that it was easy to listen to the story and keep everything straight.

All and all this is

A Good Surprise

Have to say this was a good listen, the characters are interesting the story is good and is it worth the money or credit to get. I see their is some resemblance to the John Carter movie, but in my opinion this book is far more interesting and I hope people will give this book a chance they will be pleasantly surprised.

Bad-Ass Biker Chick on Barsoom, er Waar, er Earth!

Ex-Airborne Ranger Jane Carver, a "bad-ass biker chick," has a reform-school past, a two-strike prison record, and a problem with authority. She has sent Hollywood screenwriter Jason Long her true story on cassette tapes, offering to let him publish it and split any profits 50-50. Long tells us that Jane (not her real name) is about 6'2" with broad shoulders and "rugged good looks." Her story begins when she accidentally kills a sexually harassing jerk and, while fleeing the police, hides in a cave, touches a strange artifact, and is teleported to another world, aptly named Waar, populated as it is by fearsome predators and bellicose humanoids. Witnessing a massacre perpetrated by one faction of purple people on another, she befriends the survivor, Sai-Far, whose betrothed Wen-Jhai, daughter of the ruler of Ora, the greatest nation on Waar, has just been bride-napped by a powerful rival, Kedac-Zir. Thus begins Jane's pulpy adventure, involving "savage" four-armed, lizard-tailed, dread-locked tiger-centaurs, "civilized," purple-skinned, hyphen-named people, and a non-stop series of raids, brawls, duels, death matches, battles, disguises, pursuits, captures, incarcerations, enslavements, entertainments, amorous advances, romance counselings, and more as she tries to help the gormless and spineless Sai reunite with his true love so he may marry her so that her father may grant Jane access to another artifact with which to return to earth where she believes she wants to be.

Needless to say, Long is affectionately riffing on Edgar Rice Burroughs' John Carter. Both A Princess of Mars (1917) and Jane Carver of Waar (2012) begin with the reality-claiming conceit that the heroes have given their first person stories to the authors. Both heroes wake up naked on an alien world where they have super strength and jumping ability due to earth's stronger gravity. Both encounter exotic and dangerous flora and fauna and bad organized religions. Both catalyze Big Events. Both become caught up in page-turning action that devolves into absurdity if you catch your breath and coldly examine it. (The frenetic fun of Long's book is signaled by the one-word exclamation-marked titles of the chapters, like "Hunted!" "Monsters!" and "Captives!")

That said, Long is not rewriting A Princess of Mars with a female lead. For one thing, he avoids what was one of the most interesting parts of John Carter's life on Barsoom (learning the local language) by having the artifact that transports Jane to Waar automatically make her fluent in Sai's tongue. Unlike John Carter, Jane adventures not to win her own true love but to help another person win his. For that matter, while John Carter is heterosexual, Jane is a "switch hitter," and Long explores gender and sexuality more than Burroughs. Although Burroughs seems preoccupied with race (red, black, white, yellow, and green Martians), he elides the vile nature of slavery (John Carter having been on earth the "good" master of white myth beloved by his slaves), while Long explores it. And Jane (at first) has a humane reaction to killing, unlike John Carter.

The biggest difference between Burroughs/Carter and Long/Carver lies in their writing styles. The "swamp trash country girl" Jane has a cruder and more colloquial voice than John Carter, one that comically jars with the "elegant" speech of the local nobles. Jane: "I just saved your life, pal. I'll talk to you anyway I damn well please." Sai: "Tease me not, tormentor." Long also inundates Jane's narration with American pop culture references, especially similes, as in "It looked like the inside of Liberace's brain with Elvis doing the catering." Jane similarly alludes to Ty-D-Bol, the Jolly Green Giant (twice!), Angeline Jolie, Arnold Schwarzenegger, James Bond, Luke Skywalker, Frankenstein, Spider-Man, Porky Pig, Wile E. Coyote, Xena, Hulk Hogan, Justin Beiber, Elton John, Arkansas jail cells, Johnny Cochrane, Andre Agassi, Mark McGwire (twice!), the Packers (twice!), linebackers (thrice!), cheerleaders, CIA cover-ups, Larry Flynt, and more, with the result that Long's novel seems very much of its culture and era, while Burroughs' work, lacking such allusions, feels more universal and timeless. (Surprisingly, she never compares anything to John Carter.)

Some references/similes seem neat: "The silver of the rooftops against the deep black of the alleys made it all look like some huge, cubist black-velvet painting." Some seem lame: "It was as beautiful as a movie." Some seem more Long than Jane, e.g., vintage references to the likes of Steve Reeves, Clark Gable, Mae West, Heckle and Jeckle, and '50s hotrod magazines and coarse and sexist references like, "I was sweating like a whore on dollar day." Jane's language is much raunchier than John Carter's, as with "Where the f*ck have you dumped me now, you f*cking f*cks?" Given her character, that's understandable, but at times I felt that when Long's female characters talk about sex they sound like male fantasies of women rather than like real women. Jane describes light and graphic porno tableaux and often feels horny, and a female pirate captain says, "Right now I need a fat c*ck to fill my c*nt and empty my brain," while a noble woman says, "Oh yes! Harder! Don't stop! By the Seven, don't stop!" Finally, the problem is that the many pop culture references decrease the exotic experience of another world and its alien culture by making them too vividly recall ours.

The reader, Dina Pearlman, does a fine job, modifying her voice slightly for different characters, speaking clearly and convincingly. And she does a great villain-laugh.

Jane Carver of Waar (2012) is a fun, guilty pleasure that I'd only recommend to fans of the John Carter books or of female fantasy/sf characters who kick ass and talk dirty.

Good but derivative

What made the experience of listening to Jane Carver of Waar the most enjoyable?

Fairly good writing

Any additional comments?

Seems like there are way too many parallels to John Carter of Mars. Similar name. Flip the first letter from M to W. Able to make incredible leaps. Similar humans just different color. Defeats an alien species in hand to hand combat and rescues a princess. Oh and only significant technology is in flight.

Shameless but fun knock off.

I enjoyed Burroughs' Barzoom books when I was young. And I enjoyed this shameless copy (homage).

Actually the book might have benefited from less nods to the John Carter novels. And it absolutely would have benefited from less similes- "My heart pounded like the subwoofers on a cholo's Chevy". "The dawn light was like the electric pink of a hookers hotpants". Fun, but she story is so heavy with contemporary "cool" similes, that it actually becomes an annoying immersion breaker.

Still, It's a fun pulp action romp. Won't win the Nobel Price, but I liked it.

Good narration by Dina Perlman.

What a trip!

If you could sum up Jane Carver of Waar in three words, what would they be?

Burroughs done better

Who was your favorite character and why?

My favorite character was Jane, the main character. She was at times the only sane person around.Jane is very tough and a formidable enemy if crossed. She keeps her more vulnerable side behind a wall of snark.

What does Dina Pearlman bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

Ms. Pearlman's reading turned the characters into believable people. At this point, she's in my top three narrators - and this from just a single book.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

I did. Unfortunately my schedule doesn't allow such luxury.

Any additional comments?

Obviously this was an update to the classic Burroughs. I've loved Burroughs in all forms since I was in my teens. This is an excellent job. I can't believe I started this breaking my current rule of Not Another Series. /Tough - those other series will wait on this one.

great listen ..would not change a thing Mark 9

original strong female lead no silly women roll just hardcore fun totally enjoyed it looking forward to the rest