Tag: John Carter

Conspicuous Acts of Cultural Consumption

I so wanted this to be a better book than it is

So I’ve been trying to read Edgar Rice Burroughs A Prince of Mars for over a month now. It…ah…it isn’t going at all well. So not well, in fact, that I actually put together a photograph of the book, the Spokesbear and my frowny-face of extreme displeasure as an illustrative aid, but that plan was thwarted by the fact that I’m house-sitting and brought the wrong thingamywatsits* to connect the camera to the computer. Hell, I suspect reading this book is actually making me a little crazy and there is some form of retaliatory planetary romance pastiche in my writing future**. Were I a saner person this is the point where I’d cut my losses and give up on the book, acknowledging that Princess of Mars is so deeply ingrained in the cultural prejudices of it’s time with not enough cool stuff around the edges to ease me past the knee-jerk string of “for fuck’s sake” responses I get while

Conspicuous Acts of Cultural Consumption

Red Planet Squee

Given my weebling joy of the Flash Gordon marathon I posted about a week or two ago, you may be inclined to speculate that I’m something of a fan of these planetary romance/sword-and-ray-gun genres wherein heroes from earth are plucked up and cast across the universe by various means. You would, of course, be correct – and thus be able to predict the gibbering joy that filled my office this morning when I discovered that there is a John Carter of Mars film in the works, with Michael Chabon working on the script. It’s still a long way off, to be sure, but I shall remain quietly excited about the possibility that it may manifest and be good viewing. I’m now going to head off to the computer without the internet to get some work done, in the hopes that yesterday’s burst of productivity can be maintained.