Singing Potatoes
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Tuesday, 7 February 2006
Curses! I have lost my voice!
It Stinks!

When I installed an ebook reader on my 770 last Thursday, I went looking for books to put on it. Among the ones I found were the first five books of Edgar Rice Burroughs' Barsoom series, which I must admit I had never read. I'm currently working my way through the fourth book, Thuvia, Maid of Mars, though I accidentally read the fifth one, Chessmen of Mars, before it.

I've had an idea for a novel of my own floating around in my head for some time now, so tonight I downloaded and installed an opensource word processor on the 770, with hopes that I can work on it whenever a few spare moments come my way, wherever I might be. After doing so, I set to work on the inaugural paragraph of the first chapter.

And then erased it again, because what I had written was unmistakably in the stilted, archaic phraseology of Edgar Rice Burroughs. Gah! Good thing (mien) I hadn't (attar) been reading (demesne) Stephen R. (clench) Donaldson...


Posted by godfrey (link)
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Comments
That happens to me all the time--whenever I am into a certain author, everything I write is in that author's style. I even think in that style--and as you can see, at the moment I'm into graphic novels.
Posted by Zach on 7 Feb 2006 19:53
Well, at least I'm not the only one.

What graphic novels? (I recently re-read V for Vendetta, to get me in the mood for seeing the movie...)

Posted by Godfrey on 7 Feb 2006 20:39
If I may ask, where were the Barsoom novels available? I haven't ever read those either and would like to sometime.

I've heard very good things about the cinematic adaptation of V for Vendetta.
Posted by Darren on 7 Feb 2006 21:04
I got them as Plucker books from this site, but the first five are available in HTML format at Project Gutenberg, and some of the others at Project Gutenberg of Australia. As they're listed in alphabetical order, the chronology of the novels may be gleaned from the Wikipedia entry on ERB.

Posted by Godfrey on 7 Feb 2006 21:14
Most recently, the didactic but entertaining Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud, whose last name makes me wonder what he had against Highlander.
Posted by Zach on 7 Feb 2006 21:21