The Warlord of Mars

If you don't know the work of Burroughs, you don't know science fiction! This is the first of about 13 books in the "Martian series" featuring John Carter of Virginia. How Carter gets to Mars in the first place makes me wonder if Burroughs took peyote. His writing is so descriptive that he easily creates a world, several races of people, a language, an architecture, a menagerie of beasts, exotic weapons, airships, and a chess game! None of this is apparent in the title. Forget the stuff they are calling sic-fi these days; this is the real thing! Oh yeah, Burroughs also did five books about a guy named Carson on Venus, and 26 Tarzan novels.