A Princess of Mars (1912) by Edgar Rice Burroughs is one of the most over-the-top novels ever written. Inspired by pulp and in turn inspiring pulp to this day, its heroic absurdity-ahem, sentimentality possesses a verve for storytelling that plumbs the depths of exaggerated and imaginative fiction like few other period works of such length. And once the train starts rolling, it's tough to stop it. The Gods of Mars (1914), sequel to A Princess of Mars, sets the dial to twelve for John Carter's wild return to Barsoom.Transported back to Earth amidst an oxygen crisis at the end of A Princess of Mars, John Carter never learned whether the woman he loved, Dejah Thoris, or the son they were waiting to hatch (hatch!!!) suffocated or not. Praying to the sky above his New York home one night that he might return to know their fate, at the outset of The Gods of Mars John Carter once again finds his corporeal-self transported away from Earth. Arriving in an unfamiliar land, he's unsure whether he's on Barsoom or not. Strange plant men assaulting him in an exotic landscape that is nothing like his memories of the red planet, it isn't until he meets up with his old friend Tars Tarkas that the truth slowly unfolds: he has arrived in Dor, the land of the dead. All manner of exotic adventure unraveling, Carter must fight through peril and danger to escape a land no Barsoomiam has ever escaped from to learn what has befallen his beloved Dejah Thoris and son in the ten years since he last set foot on Mars

エドガー・ライス・バローズが放つ本作の真髄は、過剰な情熱と「英雄的飛躍」にあります。偽りの宗教を打ち砕く反逆の物語は、パルプ・フィクションの枠を超えた神話性を放っています。失われた愛を求め、死の国を奔走するジョン・カーターの姿は、読者の冒険心を強烈に揺さぶり、不可能をねじ伏せる圧倒的なカタルシスを与えてくれます。 実写映像では重力を超える跳躍が具現化されましたが、原作には言葉でしか描けない濃密な実在感が宿っています。文字から立ち上がる極彩色の光景と映像のスペクタクル。この両者が共鳴することで、バローズが夢想した真の火星世界が完成します。メディアを越えて連鎖する興奮を、ぜひその身で体感してください。