A Princess of Mars - Legacy

Legacy

This book and its series are noted as early inspiration by many later science fiction authors including Robert A. Heinlein. Arthur C. Clarke and Ray Bradbury. Bradbury admired Burroughs' stimulating romantic tales, and they were an inspiration for his The Martian Chronicles (1950), which used some similar conceptions of a dying Mars. Burroughs' Barsoom novels have also been cited as a model for H. P. Lovecraft's The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath. Frederik Pohl, another giant in the speculative fiction community, paid homage to the story in his 1972 work, "Sad Solarian Screenwriter Sam," although it is a somewhat backhanded compliment: The story is found so offensive to the actual Martians that it lends itself to be the lynchpin for the obliteration of Earth.

Others influenced by Burroughs and his John Carter books include James Cameron, who mentioned the influence on his science-fiction epic Avatar in The New Yorker magazine, and George Lucas, whose Star Wars movies were influenced by Flash Gordon, which in turn was influenced by Burroughs. Also author Michael Crichton named a character after John Carter. John Barnes's novel In the Hall of the Martian King features a space shuttle named John Carter.

Burroughs' Barsoom series was popular with American readers, helping inspire their support for the US Space Program, and also scientists who grew up on reading the novels. These include pioneers of space exploration research and the search for life on other planets. Scientist Carl Sagan read the books as a young boy, and they continued to affect his imagination into his adult years; he remembered Barsoom as a "world of ruined cities, planet girding canals, immense pumping stations—a feudal technological society". For two decades a map of the planet, as imagined by Burroughs, hung in the hallway outside of Sagan's office in Cornell University. Author-Illustrator Mark Rogers also lampooned the Barsoom series in the second Samurai Cat book.

For the novel's centennial anniversary, Library of America has published a hardcover edition based on the original book in April 2012 with an introduction by Junot Díaz (ISBN 978-1-59853-165-7).