How do you like your oblivion: pink or blue?

Perhaps it is true that we would not have John Carter of Mars without Lt. Gulliver Jones of Mars, the titular paladin traveler of this Radium-Age almost-classic sci-fi adventure from 1905. Or perhaps it's the opposite. Would readers have forgotten about Gu

"Lieutenant Gullivar Jones: His Vacation" is the last fictional book from Edwin Lester Lindon Arnold (1857 - March 1, 1935). The book is also known as "Gullivar of Mars", and in both cases there are editions of the books using the alternate spelling "Gulliver". Along with his book "The Wonderful Adv

This is the story of Lieutenant Gulliver Jones of the United States Navy magically appearing on Mars. He has a number of adventures there, such as saving a Martian princess and going down a River of Death. Sounds like the hero John Carter created by Edgar Rice Burroughs...but this was written in 190

Edwin L. Arnold had some reputation in his own day as a writer of highly melodramatic science fiction, mostly based on this book and on his Phra the Phoenician --which I haven't read; and based on this one, won't!-- both are mentioned in older editions of The Anatomy of Wonder, and some critics, inc

An adventure on Mars to rescue a princess.

This is one of those Ur-adventures of the "wander through weird landscape facing weirder monsters, on the thinnest of pretexts" type. If this didn't inspire A Princess of Mars, it drew on the same inspirations.

Racist, sexist, and colonial. Good descriptions

I have a much older Ace edition. Some folks say that this is the book that inspired Burroughs' John Carter series. It came first, certainly, and there are some similarities, but they are relatively minor. I give it a three for being a very early and imaginative book, but the story itself probably de

On those rare occasions when it is discussed at all today, British author Edwin L. Arnold's final book, "Lt. Gullivar Jones: His Vacation," is primarily spoken of as a possible influence on Edgar Rice Burroughs' John Carter novels. But this, it seems to me, is doing Arnold's last writing endeavor a

Written in 1905 Gullivar of Mars predates Edgar Rice Burroughs' A Princess of Mars by some 7 years and in many respects it is remarkably similar - our human hero (here a navel man) gets mysteriously transported to Mars and falls in love with a Martian princess. She gets abducted and he has to rescue

This is another entry in a long quest to read through the origins of my favorite waves of pulp science-fantasy. I imagine I came to this book for the reason most other folks did: to see what (if anything) inspired Burroughs' immortal Barsoom books. Richard A. Lupoff's introduction to the ACE editio