BARSOOM
by: Rick Johnson 
PO Box 40451
Tucson, Az.
85717
RikJohnson@juno.com
Barsoom! In the minds of the fans of Burroughs, no place cries out adventure more than this. In over ten novels (some say nine with a couple of second-rate add-ons), Burroughs described a world, dying but still struggling, of adventure. His immortal hero, John Carter of Virginia, Earth, was the perfect hero. Finding himself naked and alone on an alien planet, he not only survived, he triumphed, won the war and the princess to live happily ever after… until the sequel.
The Barsoomian novels have sparked the imagination to such an extent that Burroughs fan-fic tends to focus on this world and I admit that I am no different, having two of my own on paper with a couple more outlined. (note that I put my own writing first on Tangor’s ERB-List then after giving him a month for first publication, I move the original and unedited version here.
The most interesting thing is that Burroughs wrote his first novel, Under the Moons of Mars because he felt that he was an absolute failure at everything else and this was done in desperation. So afraid was he of being sent to a mental institution, that he took the pen-mane “Normal Bean” to imply that he was sane. He needed not have worried.
Without permission, I am mainly giving the URL to find what I consider to be the best of the net concerning this most favored of the worlds of Edgar Rice Burroughs though occasionally I will ’steal’ a paper whose author is unknown. If so, please inform me of the author so I can get permission.
Also please feel free to add to this site with art, papers, articles, etc.
Table of Contents
The Novels of Barsoom
Maps of Barsoom
History of Barsoom
Jon Nixon’s Barsoom Time & Distance Calculator
A Humble Personal Opinion on Barsoomian Demography, Polity, Society and Economy
A Barsoomian Glossary
The Anatomy of the Martians
Art of Barsoom warning, nudity here.
Fan Fiction
Jetan, Martian Chess and other games
Links to great Barsoom Sites
The Culture of Barsoom
MAPS of BARSOOM
The original map of Barsoom from the notebook of Edgar Rice Burroughs.
The Atlas of Edgar Rice Burroughs by Abner Perry
Abner has collected some of the best maps from the various Burroughs series. Some by Burroughs himself, others by his readers.
My maps of Barsoom. I've created a number of maps of Barsoom from ancient Barsoom when the Five Oceans still flowed to Modern Barsoom and even a number of sectional maps.
A Geography of the Burroughs Novels
Matching Mars, the Lost Canals of Percival Lowell. by Den Valdron
Geographers of Mars: Matching Mars and Barsoom, a New Approach. by Den Valdron
Beneath Barsoom. by Den Valdron.
Mapping Barsoom I, Can it be Done? by Rick Johnson
Some of the problems with creating a real map of Barsoom.
Mapping Barsoom II, Compromises by Rick Johnson
How we can combine the various maps of Mars and create a workable map of Barsoom
Mapping Barsoom III, the Past by Rick Johnson
My idea of what Barsoom looked like a half million years ago.
Barsoom Questions by Rick Johnson
A Timeline of all possible Burroughs events
The Fall of Barsoom. by Den Valdron
Mass Extinction on Barsoom. by Den Valdron.
Barsoom before JC. by Den Valdron.
JON NIXON’S BARSOOM CALCULATORS FOR TIME AND DISTANCE
LANGUAGE of BARSOOM
Conjectures on Evolution of a Common Language by Den Valdron.
THE RACES of BARSOOM
The Anatomy of the Green Man
Thoughts on the Evolution of Current Day Flora and Fauna of Barsoom By Vad Varo
Are the Barsoom Inhabitants Human? by Den Valdron.
Evolution on Barsoom. by Den Valdron.
ART of BARSOOM
FAN FICTION about BARSOOM
JETAN, MARTIAN CHESS
The Chess Varients Page
James Killian Spratt
Jetan
LINKS of BARSOOM
Welcome to Dor by Rick Johnson.
Apocryphal Barsoom. by Den Valdron.
Mighty Oak of Barsoom. by Den Valdron.
Malacandra on Barsoom. by Den Valdron.
The Real Promeval Mars. by Den Valdron.
Gulliver Jones on Barsoom? by Den Valdron
H.G. Wells’ Barsoom! by Den Valdron
The Real Primeval Mars. by Den Valdron
The Secret of Thuria. by Den Valdron
JC and the Giant of Mars. by Den Valdron.
Links from ERBZine
CULTURE
Dressed to Kill, A Study of Martian Fashion by Fredrik Ekman
Barsoomian Customs
Barsoomian Units of Measurement
Religion
The Religion of Barsoom by Den Valdron.
Technology
Technology of Barsoom
Anatomy
A Humble Personal Opinion on Barsoomian Demography, Polity, Society and Economy by Sildan Cristian.
Ever wonder how many Martians live in a certain city or what they do besides war? Here is a good paper on that same subject.
Time Conversion calculators.
Distance Conversion calculators.
These are a couple of programs where you plug into a box the number of Haads or miles or Kilometers you have and the program converts it for you. Go there and have fun!
Barsoomian
The Language Of Edgar Rice Burroughs' Mars
An exploration of the language of Barsoom.
Return to contents,
A Barsoom Glossary by David Bozarth
This deals with each of the races of Barsoom, their history and anatomy and to an extent their RPG stats.
Possibly the best attempt to understand the Green Man. My only concerns are that the author draws the Green Men as being far too muscled when Burroughs described them as extremely thin.
Return to contents.
A Princess of Mars by James Spratt
One of the many comic versions of the Barsoom novels. Note: nudity and violence.
Return to contents,
Tangor’s Pastiche & Fan Fiction
Here is the most complete collection of Barsoom Fan Fiction. It is also where I generally submit my own stories.
I like to publish my writings on Tangor's list first. After a month on the Tangor site, I place the original story here on the Fan Fiction page.
The Jetan Tower
A site dedicated to Jetan.
This site collects ancient and unusual versions of chess including Jetan.
Mr Spratt is an excellent sculpture and has created a Jetan set which is well worth the price he charges. I am still painting the one I bought from him.
Another place to learn something of the game.
Return to contents,
Here are places that probably aren’t mentioned above or below.
ERBZine
Possibly THE BEST place for anything dealing with Edgar Rice Burroughs.
Return to contents,
This is an intensive study into the actual dress of the Barsoomian as researched by Ekman.
Barsoom, the world
Probably the best paper on the cult of Tur and Iss ever. This gives an insight into the history of the religions. also found here.
If it looks Human. A paper on both the family tree of the humans on Earth and the problems with interbreeding. Submitted to Tangor's site, it will be posted here in it's complete version a month after Tangor uploads it.
Return to contents,
To contact me or to request topics to be covered, send to RikJohnson@juno.com
by: Rick Johnson
PO Box 40451
Tucson, Az.
85717
