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Princes vs. Princesses

I was asked an interesting question a couple weekends ago: “Which is better: Dune or A Princess of Mars?”

Dune is, of course, the classic 1965 novel by Frank Herbert in which a young Paul Atreides discovers and struggles with his destiny as a pseudo-messiah.

By contrast, Princess of Mars was published almost 54 years earlier by Edgar Rice Burroughs. In it John Carter, a Civil War veteran, is transported to Mars (called “Barsoom” by the natives) where he encounters the alien Tharks and beautiful Dejah Thoris.

You can’t really compare, or criticize, the two. Dune is now a classic, if dense, polital thriller generally considered one of the best specimens of the post-WWII science fiction genre. Princess is also a classic and is a seminal piece of early 20th Century pulp fiction. It has been acknowledged as an influence by Robert Heinlein and Ray Bradbury.

Princess is one of the foundation stones on which Dune stands.

That said, I don’t personally consider Princess to be a part of the science fiction genre. It is certainly pulp fiction, and possibly fantasy. But Burroughs used and abused technology to make his story work with little consideration to whether or not they are scientifically feasible. The giants of the “Golden Age” of science fiction—such as Isaac Asimov, Heinlein, and Bradbury—would consider this antithetical to “true” (my word) science fiction.

To my mind “true” science fiction is primarily focused on exploring the possibilities and ramifications of future or alternative technology. Burroughs never attempts to explain the technology of his imagined world, nor does he apologize for creating and using whatever deus ex machina was necessary to serve the plot.

Used copies of Dune can easily be found all over the Internet or in used book stores for pennies. Princess has fallen out of copyright into the public domain (as has most of the rest of the series) and can be found in the usual places. Do consider hunting down a physical copy; Michael Whelan’s cover art for the series is fantastic.

Princess and the two stories that followed it (The Gods of Mars and The Warlord of Mars) are great. The other eight in the Barsoom series are of varying quality. Consider that they are all quick reads that tell interesting, influential stories.

Dune was followed by five sequels written by Herbert before he died in 1986 as well as several works penned by Herbert’s son Brian with Kevin J. Anderson. All of these are of widely varying quality and time is better spent investigating other great works.