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PaperclipPerfector  1d ago (text post)   576 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for November 7, 2025

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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So I read The Master Mind of Mars, the 7th story in the Barsoom/John Carter series. It was aggressively mediocre. Each of these stories has pretty boring, one dimensional characters that are either all good and honorable or all unrepentantly evil and consummate liars. The redeeming quality of Barsoom is usually at least one, single good sci-fi hook or mystery, and some slightly above average action. The hook for this one was a scientist who can swap brains in bodies. It was not his best hook, and the by the numbers "Go and save a girl" story was only complicated by the fact that the hero was trying to save her body to put her brain back in it. Would not recommend it really.

By 1911, around age 36, after seven years of low wages as a pencil-sharpener wholesaler, Burroughs began to write fiction. By this time, Emma and he had two children, Joan (1908–1972), and Hulbert (1909–1991).[15] During this period, he had copious spare time and began reading pulp-fiction magazines. In 1929, he recalled thinking that:

"[...] if people were paid for writing rot such as I read in some of those magazines, that I could write stories just as rotten. As a matter of fact, although I had never written a story, I knew absolutely that I could write stories just as entertaining and probably a whole lot more so than any I chanced to read in those magazines."[16]

The mediocrity of the books makes sense in context, I think.^^

SM Stirling wrote a peculiar homage to that idea of Mars that's both cringe ('hero' getting saved by the princess yawn, strong womyn chars) and kinda awesome for the worldbuilding & and the unimaginable amounts of low-key heresy(explaining why the womyn is so strong) for which he wasn't cancelled. Spoilers on the link. A good read I think, Stirling can write adventure stories just fine.

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