I've been reading some of the works of Edgar Rice Burroughs lately. They're certainly not great art or great books or even great writing, but they certainly are great stories. Tarzan and John Carter keep you turning the pages to see what's going to happen next. I'd read some of the Tarzan novels here and there before this, but I'd never tried the Barsoomian novels.
They're both ridiculously over the top, of course, Tarzan is incredibly adept at everything right up until the plot requires him to make a stupid error of great magnitude which he makes even though there are a dozen reasons why he shouldn't. John Carter gets a bit of that since he's on Mars and the lower gravity provides a thin excuse for Burroughs to allow him to perform marvelous physical feats. Carter also gets credit for being able to beat anyone mano a mano and every time he needs a lucky break, it comes his way. This is not a man to gamble with.
The stories are, as I said, great. They're loads of fun and they read like the stuff out of the old Boys' Life magazines. One clearly shouldn't take them too seriously, but Tarzan and Carter provide the kind of male hero that used to be a staple of boys' fiction. They're both honest, chivalrous, generous and honourable to a fault. In other words, quite out of step with our modern, ironic times. If you've never read them, you should at least give them a try and if you're looking for a good gift for a boy of about 12, they would be an excellent choice.
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