This is one of my favorite books. I am so glad this new reading has been released with the exceptional narrating ability of Scott Brick. This listenin..Show More »g experience is so much better than the listening torture of previous narrattors. I have listen to Mr. Brick's version twice already.

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When you're in the public domain you get adapted and sold a lot if you were successful in your time. I bought this because it seemed to have the most..Show More » enjoyable narrator of the nine versions of this book available on Audible alone. Many of the rest were either poor old recordings or were read by someone who sounded very "Southern Gentleman dandy" while the narrator of the story was a man of war and action. It's a classic sci-fi so it encounters the old sci-fi problems here and there of gender bias, though not as much racism as your Lovecrafts or Conans.

Worth your time if you're up for some old timey science fiction. The story is fun and the characters are mostly naked.

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I thought the book was excellent, as long as you immediately "suspend your disbelief." I also thought the narration was very good - not over dramatic,..Show More » but that's the way I like audio books - intelligently read but not "acted out."
These are books, not stage plays, and I like to be able to "create" the characters in my mind, just like I do with the printed word. To each his own, I guess.

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This isn't science fiction, since there's absolutely no scientific basis for any aspect of the story--the space travel, the physiology of some of the ..Show More »alien races, the ability of a human being to produce offspring with a humanoid whose reproductive process involves laying and incubating eggs (but it was written in 1917, so I'll cut it some slack on its lack of genetic verisimilitude).

Despite some silliness in the underlying premise, once Our Hero arrives on Mars, the sociology, technology, and theology of "Barsoom" that is revealed over the course of this and the next two books of the trilogy ("Gods of Mars," "Warlord of Mars") is fascinating, and a great example of what I believe fantasy authors today call "world building." As sheer fantasy/adventure, this Burroughs trilogy, like the more famous Tarzan series, is a prototype. John Carter, southern gentleman and adventurer in the post-Civil war era, is an Indiana Jones type, and if his mode of transport to Mars is not particularly realistic, it is certainly dramatic.

This book is, as mentioned, the first of a trilogy. "Princess" and "Gods" both have good old-fashioned cliffhanger endings, with everything wrapping up in"Warlord." Other titles in the series are spinoffs.

There are several narrations of this book available on Audible, and I sampled all of them before choosing Jack Sondericker's. He did a splendid job, and I'm sorry he didn't narrate the other two books. I note he narrates the "Left Behind" series and a number of Westerns; those who listen to "Princess" will probably see some logic in this.






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After listening to "Tarzan" narrated by Jim Hill, and thoroughly enjoying it, this narration of another Burroughs book, "A Princess of Mars", made me ..Show More »wish it had also been narrated by Jim Hill instead of Peter Delloro. Mr Delloro's narration was histrionic with many mispronounced words. The narration distracted from the story. The story itself deserves 3-4 stars, but the narration is terrible.

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As a longtime fan of rich and amazing imagination of Edgar Rice Burroughs, I nearly fell over myself when I saw that the Barsoom (Mars) series was ava..Show More »ilable to the fifth title--A_Princess_of_Mars being the first of the series. I promptly bought it when I began my subscription at Audible. John Bolen is a very good reader. Other reviewers have complained of his affection of the Southern accent, but that is wrong. The character, John Carter, is a Virginian and so the accent is flavor. The reader affects several voices for the book's characters and is clear and distinct with them all. He is also clear in his readings; so much so that I was able to listen without strain. I thoroughly enjoyed the reading and this recording gave me a new dimension in this, one of my most favored stories.

A_Princess_of_Mars is a unique story written in a time when our unknowns were more tangible and the world was simpler. Burroughs paints a magnificent romance about the planet Mars rich with many denizens and full of high adventure.

It is a magnificent story and one for all ages.

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In this sequel to "A Princess of Mars," its narrator--the heroic, strong, invincible, and generally perfect specimen of fighting manhood John Carter o..Show More »f Virginia--finds himself once again transported willy-nilly to Mars ("Barsoom" to its resident peoples). But this time he is plopped down on the shores of a fabled lost sea--the only open water on Mars--to which many religious Martians make a pilgrimage from which none returns. The eons-old belief is that true pilgrims live out their days in bliss on the lost sea's shores. The reality is horrifyingly different.

There are two interesting social aspects to this story. One is the theme of religious superstition being used to enslave, exploit, kill, and control those the supposed "holy ones" deem inferior. The other is that the evil "holy Therns" are the white race of Barsoom ("Princess" introduced the heroic Red Men and the non-humanoid Green Men, both of whom Carter befriended). This white race in turn lives in terror of the First Men, a black race who are portrayed as the ultimate enslavers (perhaps too heavy-handed a note of irony). All of this would seem to put Burroughs' breadth of mind and imagination well ahead of his time (circa 1915-1920 for these books), which is not unusual in writers of science fiction and fantasy.

To call Edgar Rice Burroughs' prose "purple" is an understatement. But the first 2/3 of "The Gods of Mars," is a whopping good adventure, with new villains and heroes at every turn. The final 1/3, in which Carter and company escape "paradise" only to face execution as blasphemers, gets pretty silly and (worse) boring. The cliffhanger ending, involving a huge, slowly rotating stone edifice where each chamber's door meets its opening only once a year, once more sparks interest. Tune in to the final book in the trilogy, "The Warlord of Mars"!

Having listened to Jack Sondricker's excellent reading of the first book (he didn't do the other two, apparently), I was really disappointed in this reading. The production values are poor (several instances where static distorts the reader), and Engene's clunky, slow phrasing is frustrating. I must have overlooked William Dufris's version, which from its sample sounds like it's probably better than this rendition.






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This book was very exciting! Never a dull moment and plenty of battles. The only thing I wasn't impressed with was the narrator. His voice was some..Show More »what droning and irritating. His voice did not vary from a monotone.

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Not sure I like the voice of the reader.
Thankfuly the story is great.
Can stand alone but best to start with the 1st audio.

I love the ERB John Carter books, but after the Princess of Mars (produced by Books in Motion), this adaptation produced by Tantor and read by John Bo..Show More »len is awful. Bolen's attempt at a southern accent is pitiful, but even worse is his upturned pitch at the end of each sentence. Pitching tones downward suitably concludes a sentence, but Bolen turns up to a high a note, successfully making it seem as if none of the sentences have periods to end them. His diction and articulation are also abysmal. I will suffer through the whole book, but this is one of the worst narrations I have ever heard.

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Bolen, in his excellent "southern gentleman" drawl, continues the fascinating story of John Carter's adventures on the planet Mars. The Mars of Burrou..Show More »ghs' imagination is a million times more interesting than the harsh and hostile planet we've all read about in science books. This wonderful audiobook will thrill you.

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The forced, mock southern accent of the narrator was too much for me to bear, I actually bought another production just so that I might hear this grea..Show More »t tale.

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I posted my first review ever for _Gods of Mars_ because the Tantor Media narrator was so terrible. I did not think any narrator could be as bad or wo..Show More »rse. And then I listened to this book. Delloro's vocal tone makes it seem as if he is shouting through the entire eight hour audio file!! He also cannot pronounce simple words like chasm or stygian let alone the obvious pronunciation of character names, such as Xodar (Zodar not Ex-o-dar). ERB's books are fun, but only a true fan will be able to suffer through this atrocious narrator's work.

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I've read the novel before, and it is classic Burroughs. Not his best but not his worst by any means. The main problem I had with this audiobook was t..Show More »he narration.

There were two problems. First, the narrator used some sort of Eastern European accent for all the Martian dialogue, and a neutral American accent otherwise. This grated on me and detracted from the content of what was being spoken, since the accent was being pushed so much that the dialogue felt unnatural. Second, there was little feeling or emotion being expressed in the dialogue. I felt that the narrator didn't understand the feelings of the charactors nor the author's intent, and as a result it was difficult for me to engage with the characters or the story. It was like listening to someone reading a laundry list.

For me either aspect was a killer. I would not recommend this rendition.

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John Carter minimally appears in this 5th Mars novel by ERB. #4 featured his son. This one features his daughter. The story is what it is, typical ..Show More »ERB. Fun stuff. Pulp drama. The narrator is...well...what can I say? He's okay? His pacing is bland. His female voices are all faltsetto. He mispronounces a number of words. And his Southern accent for John Carter...well, I'll leave that for others to judge, as I'm not from Virginia. The story carries it through, though. As Burroughs always does, if you love this sort of stuff.

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