Fantasy Burroughs, Edgar Rice: Barsoom Omnibus. v4, 12 Apr 2012

[HarryT]

A bit of light-hearted relief from the serious stuff, here's Edgar Rice Burroughs' complete "Barsoom" series, in one (very long!) book:

1. A Princess of Mars
2. The Gods of Mars
3. The Warlord of Mars
4. Thuvia, Maid of Mars
5. The Chessmen of Mars
6. The Master Mind of Mars
7. A Fighting Man of Mars
8. Swords of Mars
9. Synthetic Men of Mars
10. Llana of Gathol
11. John Carter of Mars

Just in case anyone isn't familiar with it, the "Barsoom" series is the architypal "boys' own adventure" type stories, set on (a fantasic) planet Mars, with muscle-bound heroes, princesses to be rescued from fates worse than death, wierd monsters, etc etc. It's true to say that "Star Wars" would never have existed without "Barsoom".

I've done this along the same lines as my previous "Complete Sherlock Holmes" book; there's a book index at the start, and selecting a book takes you to a contents page for that book.

I naively thought this would be quick to produce, but I've just finished it after a 12h "marathon". Many of the PG sources (especially for the later books in the series) are extremely poorly formatted, and needed a great deal of work to make them look reasonable.

Enjoy!

EDIT: 8 Jan 08

Completely recreated the book with improved formatting. Uploaded v2.

EDIT: 29 Jul 09

Replaced books 2-4 in the series with improved versions from PG. Added an improved cover. Changed the name from "Barsoom Collection" to "Barsoom Omnibus" to be consistent with my other omnibus editions. Uploaded v3.

EDIT: 12 Apr 12

Completely reformatted and thoroughly proofed against printed versions of all 11 of the books that comprise the omnibus. Goodness knows how many thousand errors corrected, and a considerable amount of text added which was previously missing. I would now regard this as a finished product; if you find any errors, no matter how small, please let me know so that they can be corrected. Uploaded v4.

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[The Alternative]

I've reverted back to my childhood with these stories!

Thanks Harry!

[tsgreer]

It's official: I'm never going to leave my house again. I have my Sony Reader, these books and this forum. I have no reason to go out.

[NatCh]

Heh, he'll know when you ask that you just want to sit around and read!

[Bob Russell]

The 1966 Hugo awards make this one of the Top 5 all-time series.
Here's the full list (http://www.locusmag.com/SFAwards/Db/Hugo1966.html):

ALL-TIME SERIES
# "Foundation" series, Isaac Asimov
# "Barsoom" series, Edgar Rice Burroughs
# "Future History" series, Robert A. Heinlein
# "Lensman" series, Edward E. Smith
# The Lord of the Rings, J. R. R. Tolkien

[igorsk]

Well, I finished the thing, and everything was nice and proper (aside for a few typos here and there) until the last book:
1) There is no entry for book 12 (Skeleton Men of Jupiter) in the main TOC
2) TOC of Book 11 contains part of book 12's TOC.
3) Book 12 is incomplete

[HarryT]

Hi Igorsk,

"Skeleton Men of Jupiter" isn't a separate book in the edition I used, although it is sometimes published as one.

In the edition I used, "John Carter of Mars" contains two novellas:

"John Carter and the Giant of Mars"
"Skeleton Men of Jupiter"

Hence no separate TOC entry for "Skeleton Men".

I've double checked with two different editions of "Skeleton Men" and they both finish in the same place - after 9 chapters. I agree that it is a somewhat "abrupt" ending, but that appears to be the way that it really does end. It is only a short short, or novella perhaps, not a full-length book.

What do you believe is missing from it?

[igorsk]

Hm, looks like it just got canned for some reason. From the summary:

Skeleton Men of Jupiter was first published in Amazing Stories, February 1943. It was left incomplete, and has been often “finished” by many pastiche writers.

[HarryT]

That's good to know. I was pretty sure I hadn't missed anything out!

[HarryT]

Completely recreated the book with improved formatting. Uploaded v2.

[Stanart]

My thanks to you Harry for this collection. My wife and I have been using this as an "audiobook" - reading it to each other while we're traveling in the car. So, it'll be a while getting through it but we've read the first three novels.

This is our first experience reading Burroughs and it's a kick. For those who haven't tried this collection yet, I can recommend it. Given how long ago these stories were written, they hold up pretty well and those parts that don't just seem sort of endearing to me. Some of the ideas for the Star Wars movies had to have obviously come from the Barsoom series. These stories are all about action, action, action and invincible heroes.

[HarryT]

Replaced books 2-4 in the series with improved versions from PG. Added an improved cover. Changed the name from "Barsoom Collection" to "Barsoom Omnibus" to be consistent with my other omnibus editions. Uploaded v3.

[HarryT]

Completely reformatted and thoroughly proofed against printed versions of all 11 of the books that comprise the omnibus. Goodness knows how many thousand errors corrected, and a considerable amount of text added which was previously missing. I would now regard this as a finished product; if you find any errors, no matter how small, please let me know so that they can be corrected. Uploaded v4.

[spitfire54]

Thanks for all the work.