A PRINCESS OF MARS (Edgar Rice Burroughs) - March 8/12

This surprisingly interminable book was kind of readable in the beginning, with the outlandish premise employed to relatively decent effect by Burroughs. But the author's insanely antiquated writing style inevitably alienated me, as it became more and more difficult to care about the central character's fish-out-of-water exploits. (It doesn't help that much of the book consists of long, descriptive paragraphs, which, by the end, I was pretty much completely glazing over.) The many, many action sequences are, as such, completely uninvolving and uninteresting, although I did admittedly like the climactic battle and John Carter's final discovery that he's been sent back home. The cliffhanger ending is nevertheless not going to encourage me to read any more of the books in this series. * out of ****