some really good stories and some that could have been left out. Couple in there that hopefully will become full length novels as they left ya hanging. ( )

some really good stories and some that could have been left out. Couple in there that hopefully will become full length novels as they left ya hanging. ( )

This homage to Edgar Rice Burroughs' stories set on Barsoom came off not as well as I had hoped. One can always hope ... This love song to Barsoom has 14 stories and 14 illustrations. The stories range from bad to excellent, but most are passable unless you get tortured by bending Barsoomian canon a bit. Having recently re-read "A Princess of Mars", the timing of this new collection was perfect for me. It is nice to have each story illustrated. The illustrations could have all been fabulous, but they vary quite a bit in style and success. Each story and illustration is by someone different, so we have a total of 28 approaches to the idea. Some of the pictures are really great, but there are a few that just didn't do it for me, or were in a style that did not seem to match the Barsoomian visions created in the past.

There is included a brief, heartfelt introduction by Tamora Pierce and an Appendix/Glossary/Gazetteer by Burroughs enthusiast Richard Lupoff. I won't attempt to review and rate each story here. The collection is bookended with two of the best stories starting it off and concluding with the other two best stories. Among my favorites was the leadoff story "The Metal Men of Mars" by Joe R Lansdale which immediately transported me to Barsoom with John Carter and the incomparable Dejah Thoris. Lansdale really nails Burroughs in this steampunky spin. "Three Deaths" by David Barr Kirtley follows and is yet again a great short story - one can tell that both these authors get it. Why then oh why, did Peter S. Beagle write "The Ape-Man of Mars"? Tarzan meets John Carter. Nothing wrong with that. What Beagle writes though is an epic fail - clearly no sense whatsoever of who John Carter and Tarzan are. I knew we were in trouble before the second paragraph was finished. When I read the first two stories here I thought it would take a dozen mighty Tharks to tear the smile off my face. Instead Beagle did it with less than 20 pages of stinkbomb. Tarzan, and John Carter in particular, will not be found here. There was the germ of an interesting idea, but it was rendered horribly. The story was so wrong I got mad.

After the Beagle disaster poisoned the well, I approached the later stories with some internal caution. There were a couple that skewed a bit wrong for me. I expected Stirling to be good because of his own novel "The Sky People", and his entry here "The Jasoom Project" was one of the better ones. However the end was very sketchy and the story felt quite incomplete. Better though were the last two, Catherine Valente's extraordinarily moving "Coming of Age in Barsoom" and Jonathan Maberry's heroic feeling "The Death Song of Dwar Guntha". I'm not sure which of these two is my favorite of the book.

I could have loved this book but a few misses in the mix leave me with just a like. I don't think I could recommend this to casual readers who did not already have a familiarity with Barsoom.

A full list of the stories and contributors (from ISFDB) follows:

ix • Foreword • essay by Tamora Pierce
xiii • Introduction • essay by John Joseph Adams
Story Notes • essay by John Joseph Adams and David Barr Kirtley
1 • The Metal Men of Mars • shortfiction by Joe R. Lansdale
5 • The Metal Men of Mars • interior artwork by Gregory Manchess
27 • Three Deaths • shortfiction by David Barr Kirtley
28 • Three Deaths • interior artwork by Charles Vess
45 • The Ape-Man of Mars • shortfiction by Peter S. Beagle
57 • The Ape-Man of Mars • interior artwork by Jeremy Bastian
65 • A Tinker of Warhoon • shortfiction by Tobias S. Buckell
68 • A Tinker of Warhoon • interior artwork by Chrissie Zullo
87 • Vengeance of Mars • shortfiction by Robin Wasserman
92 • Vengeance of Mars • interior artwork by Misako Rocks!
109 • Woola's Song • shortfiction by Theodora Goss
114 • Woola's Song • interior artwork by Joe Sutphin
127 • The River Gods of Mars • shortfiction by Austin Grossman
128 • The River Gods of Mars • interior artwork by Meinert Hansen
145 • The Bronze Man of Mars • shortfiction by L. E. Modesitt, Jr.
148 • The Bronze Man of Mars • interior artwork by Tom Daly
167 • A Game of Mars • shortfiction by Genevieve Valentine
169 • A Game of Mars • interior artwork by Molly Crabapple
187 • A Sidekick of Mars • shortfiction by Garth Nix
195 • A Sidekick of Mars • interior artwork by Mike Cavallaro
209 • The Ghost That Haunts the Superstition Mountains • shortfiction by Chris Claremont
217 • The Ghost That Haunts the Superstition Mountains • interior artwork by John Picacio
237 • The Jasoom Project • shortfiction by S. M. Stirling
238 • The Jasoom Project • interior artwork by Jeff Carlisle
279 • Coming of Age on Barsoom • shortfiction by Catherynne M. Valente
284 • Coming of Age on Barsoom • interior artwork by Michael Kaluta [as by Michael Wm Kaluta ]
293 • The Death Song of Dwar Guntha • shortfiction by Jonathan Maberry
309 • The Death Song of Dwar Guntha • interior artwork by Daren Bader
313 • Appendix: A Barsoomian Gazetteer, or, Who's Who and What's What on Mars • essay by Richard A. Lupoff ( )

While the publishers of this anthology of new Barsoomian fiction probably hoped to capitalize on the concurrent Disney movie John Carter, the commercial failure of the latter certainly shouldn't be held against them. Designer Tom Daly seems to have taken into some account the lovely Frazetta-illustrated editions of ERB's Barsoom under the Nelson Doubleday imprint that were my initiation to that planet in the 1970s. This book sits next to them on the shelf like a member of the family. All of these stories were written for this collection, and there is a piece of original art (black and white) to illustrate each. The world of science fiction writers teems with those who love Barsoom in one way or another, and artists also enjoy its charms.

I found all of the stories reasonably enjoyable. Only a few are straightforward pastiche; most attempt some inversion or diversion of the received standards of the Barsoomian tale. A few are told from the perspective of John Carter's foes, a few by green Martians, one by Woola the calot, and one by a "sidekick" earthling who didn't appear in the ERB stories. Two involve Tarzan cross-overs. Prose styles vary from the straightforward fantasy adventure narrative that Burroughs did so much to invent, to more poetic and introspective pieces.

The art was less impressive to me. Each illustration is given a full page, and while some were terrific (those by Charles Vess and Michael Kaluta of course, and also Jeremy Bastien, Meinert Hansen, John Picaccio, and Daren Bader), many of them seemed on the weak side, not to mention sometimes overdressed. After all, artists working with this subject matter have to endure comparison with Richard Corben and Michael Whelan, in addition to the aforementioned Frazetta. I certainly would have liked to see one of Frank Cho's drawings of Dejah Thoris here. Still, including this great variety of illustration was a sound idea.

I liked Tamora Pierce's forward, even if it wasn't very enlightening. The glossary by Richard S. Lupoff seemed pretty comprehensive and accurate, but not terribly necessary. I can recommend the book as an acquisition for collectors of Barsoomiana, and as a good one to borrow from the public library for those looking for light entertainment of the sword-and-planet flavor.