“Why every school boy on Barsoom knows
the geography, and much concerning the fauna and flora, as well as the history
of your planet fully as well as of his own.
Can we not see everything which takes place upon Earth, as you call it;
is in not hanging there in the heavens in plain sight?’
“This baffled
me, I must confess . . . She then explained in general the instruments her
people had used and perfected for ages, which permit them to throw upon a
screen a perfect image of what is transpiring upon any planet and upon many of
the stars.
"Because, John Carter," she replied,
"nearly every planet and star having atmospheric conditions at all
approaching those of Barsoom, shows forms of animal life almost identical with
you and me; and, further, Earth men, almost without exception, cover their
bodies with strange, unsightly pieces of cloth, and their heads with hideous
contraptions the purpose of which we have been unable to conceive; while you,
when found by the Tharkian warriors, were entirely undisfigured and unadorned.
You know, as I read the books, that passage always stuck with me as John Carter, and the rest of Red/Green Martian society (or at least that centered around Thark and Helium) discovered more and more areas of Mars of which no one new a damn thing.
ReplyDeleteI still love the stories, I'm not knocking them. ERB could have benefited from a continuity editor is all I'm saying. :D
agreed . . .
ReplyDeletethanks for your comment .. .
sometimes I feel I am typiing int a vacuum .. .