Classic Novels Turned Audiobook

This is a LibriVox public domain recording. An early, light-hearted short story, published in 1872 by Jules Verne. It takes place in the Flemish town of Quiquendone, where life moves at an extraordinarily tranquil pace. Doctor Ox has offered to light the town with a new gas, but actually has other plans in place. (Summary by Alan Winterrowd) --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/colin-holbrook/support

This is a LibriVox public domain recording. Dick Sands, a youth of fifteen, must assume command of a ship after the disappearance of its captain. Nature's forces combined with evil doings of men lead him and his companions to many dangerous adventures on sea and in Central Africa. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/colin-holbrook/support

This is a LibriVox public domain recording. The Castle stood above the quiet little town for as long as folks remembered: barren, deserted, lonely and frightening to the townsfolk. Until one day, smoke began to ascend from the dunjon. They were warned not to go near, and when intrepid souls dared to venture to uncover the mystery of the ruined castle, they learned firsthand what supernatural terrors await inside The Castle of the Carpathians. Summary by Joseph DeNoia. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/colin-holbrook/support

This is a LibriVox public domain recording. Readers of the present book who have not read that named above—though all should read it as well as this—will have no difficulty in joining the story of the castaways to “The Swiss Family Robinson” with the help of the brief sketch of its contents which follows.The story begins with the arrival of the Unicorn, a British corvette commanded by Lieutenant Littlestone, whose commission includes the exploration of the waters in which New Switzerland is situate. He has with him as passengers Mr. and Mrs. Wolston and their daughters Hannah and Dolly.When the Unicorn weighs anchor again Mr. Wolston and his wife and their elder daughter, Hannah, remain on the island. But the corvette takes away Fritz and Frank Zermatt and Jenny Montrose, who are all bound for England, where Jenny hopes to find her father, Colonel Montrose, and the two young men have much business to transact, and Dolly Wolston, who is to join her brother James—a married man with one child—at Cape Town. Mr. Wolston hopes that James, with his wife and child, will agree to accompany Dolly and the Zermatts—by the time they return Jenny will have become Mrs. Fritz Zermatt—to the island and take up their abode there. (Adapted from the Preface) --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/colin-holbrook/support

This is a LibriVox public domain recording. “No good deed goes Unpunished”, as the saying goes. A wealthy Egyptian leaves millions of buried treasure on an island and sends the location to the Captain that saved him while fleeing certain death from Napoleon Bonaparte. However the Egyptian does not leave the entire location: only the Latitude. The Longitude will be made known to him in time. Decades pass before a shifty notary from Alexandria arrives with the necessary Longitude, and now the lust for greed has passed from Captain to Son. Thus begins the tale of this treasure hunt, taking use from St. Malo, France to the shores of Arabian Coast and beyond. Follow this tale of strangers in strange lands, greedy third parties attempting to get the treasure for themselves, and the patience of the travels being wracked and tested from all ends on the traveling party. Summary by Joseph DeNoia. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/colin-holbrook/support

This is a LibriVox public domain recording. Around the World in Eighty Days (French: Le tour du monde en quatre-vingts jours) is a classic adventure novel by the French writer Jules Verne, first published in 1873. In the story, Phileas Fogg of London and his newly employed French valet Passepartout attempt to circumnavigate the world in 80 days on a £20,000 wager set by his friends at the Reform Club. (Summary from Wikipedia) --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/colin-holbrook/support

This is a LibriVox public domain recording. A novel with some utopian elements, but primarily dystopian. A French doctor and a German professor both inherit a vast fortune as descendants of a French soldier who married the rich widow of an Indian prince. They both decide to go to America and establish their own "ideal" society. Dr. Sarrasin, the French doctor, is focused on maintaining public health. He builds Ville-France. Professor Schultze, the German scientist, is a bit of a militarist and racist. He builds Stahlstadt and devotes his city to the production of ever more powerful weapons so that he can destroy Sarrasin's city. They manage to get the US to cede sovereignty to two cities so that the two newly rich men can create their utopia. The setting for Ville-France would place it on the Oregon Coast, near Bandon, Oregon. The location for the second city, Stahlstadt, is less clear, but the description would place it somewhere near Roseburg, Oregon. - Summary by Kate Follis --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/colin-holbrook/support

This is a LibriVox public domain recording. Writing at the end of the American Civil War, Verne weaves this story of a Scottish merchant who, in desperation at the interruption of the flow of Southern cotton due to the Union blockade, determines to build his own fast ship and run guns to the Confederates in exchange for the cotton piling up unsold on their wharves. His simple plan becomes complicated by two passengers who board his new ship under false pretenses in order to carry out a rescue mission, one which Capt. Playfair adopts as his own cause. This is going make the Rebels in Charleston rather unhappy with him. Sure, his new ship is fast - but can it escape the cannonballs of both North and South? (Summary by Mark Smith) --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/colin-holbrook/support

This is a LibriVox public domain recording. An Antarctic Mystery (French: Le Sphinx des glaces, The Sphinx of the Ice Fields) is a two-volume novel by Jules Verne. Written in 1897, it is a continuation of Edgar Allan Poe's 1838 novel The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket. Edgar Allan Poe's telling of Arthur Pym's narrative is shown to be true as events come together that bring out clues that help Captain Len Guy trace the fate of his brother's ship the Jane; the very ship that Arthur Pym was on board at the time of his disappearance. Through the efforts of Mr. Joerling, the crew of the Halbrane is enticed to make the trip to Antarctica to search for any survivors of the Jane. (Summary from Wikipedia) --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/colin-holbrook/support

This is a LibriVox public domain recording. Explorers in a hot-air balloon land on an island, figuring that they must be the only inhabitants. However, they discover a bullet inside a wounded animal--one which must have been fired within the previous three months. The men propose to build a canoe so they can survey the island in search of other human life. Many adventures follow, one after another. They find a large chest filled with provisions and tools. Setting off in search of who might have left the chest, the travelers make their way through the Mercy River to the sea. During their trek, the men find remnants of the balloon they arrived in. Back at camp (Granite House) they find their ladder to the house has been removed--by invading orangutans. Soon the animals are defeated, except for one, whom they tame to become a house servant. The men construct a bridge over the river. They protect their abode by surrounding it on all sides with water. They undertake projects to make their colony habitable and comfortable. They create a hydraulic lift to replace the ladder. They build a seagoing boat for further exploration. Eventually they discover another human on Tabor Island, bringing him back to their now-well-stocked colony. (Bill Boerst) --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/colin-holbrook/support

This is a LibriVox public domain recording. This is the first edition of Hemingway's in our time, published in a very small run in France in 1924. And American edition was released the following year. There are 18 brief short stories---one might say vignettes---that demonstrate the author's early interests and his increasingly iconic literary style. - Summary by KevinS --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/colin-holbrook/support

This is a LibriVox public domain recording. The Sun Also Rises (1926) was Hemingway's first novel to be published, though there is his novella The Torrents of Spring which was published earlier in the same year. The novel describes, expressed through the voice of Jake Barnes, a short period of social life that ranges from Paris to locations in Spain. One might say that the action occurs in Pamplona, Spain with the annual festival of San Fermin and its running of bulls and subsequent days of bullfights, but one can easily argue that the real interest of the novel is in its portrayal of the group to which Barnes is a part and how he details their anxieties, frailties, hopes, and frustrations. (Summary by KevinS) --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/colin-holbrook/support

This is a LibriVox public domain recording. Hemingway's second collection of short fiction, first published in 1927, including many of his best-known stories, including "Hills Like White Elephants" and "The Killers" - Summary by James Hutchisson --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/colin-holbrook/support

This is a LibriVox public domain recording. When Mr Henry Dashwood dies, with his estate entailed to his son and grandson, his wife and three daughters are left in reduced circumstances. In their new home at Barton Cottage, the two older sisters, Elinor and Marianne, experience both romance and heartache. Will they find true love? (Introduction by Karen Savage) --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/colin-holbrook/support

This is a LibriVox public domain recording. This fragment of a novel was written by Jane Austen in 1804 and remained untitled and unpublished until her nephew James Edward Austen-Leigh printed it in his A Memoir of Jane Austen in 1871. The title is from him.Mr Watson is a widowed clergyman with two sons and four daughters. The youngest daughter, Emma, has been brought up by a wealthy aunt and is consequently better educated and more refined than her sisters. But when her aunt contracts a foolish second marriage, Emma is obliged to return to her father's house. There she is chagrined by the crude and reckless husband-hunting of two of her twenty-something sisters.(Summary from Gesine and Wikipedia) --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/colin-holbrook/support

This is a LibriVox public domain recording. Pride and Prejudice is Jane Austen's classic comic romance, in which the five Bennett sisters try to find that most elusive creature: a single man in possession of a large fortune. Sparks fly when sweet, pretty Jane meets their new neighbor, Mr. Bingley, but her sister Elizabeth is most offended by his haughty friend, Mr. Darcy. This is Austen at the height of her powers: the ironic narration, hilariously drawn supporting characters, and romantic suspense make this her most enduringly popular novel. (Summary by Elizabeth Klett) --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/colin-holbrook/support

This is a LibriVox public domain recording. Several years before the events of the novel, Anne Elliott fell in love with a young and handsome but poor naval officer. She was persuaded by her friends and family to refuse him when he asked her to marry him. Now she meets him again... --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/colin-holbrook/support

This is a LibriVox public domain recording. Miss Frances, the youngest Ward sister, "married, in the common phrase, to disoblige her family, and by fixing on a lieutenant of marines, without education, fortune, or connexions, did it very thoroughly. She could hardly have made a more untoward choice." Some years later, pregnant with her ninth child, Mrs. Price appeals to her family, namely to her eldest sister and her husband, Sir Thomas Bertram, for help with her over-large family. Sir Thomas provides assistance in helping his nephews into lines of work suitable to their education, and takes his eldest niece, Fanny Price, then ten years old, into his home to raise with his own children. It is Fanny's story we follow in Mansfield Park. (Summary by Karen Savage with text from Mansfield Park) --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/colin-holbrook/support

This is a LibriVox public domain recording. Jane Austen famously described Emma Woodhouse, the title character of her 1815 novel, as "a heroine whom no-one but myself will much like." Yet generations of readers have loved Emma, as much for her blunders as for her wit and vivacity. Emma, "handsome, clever, and rich," has nothing else to do but try to pair off her friends, and she consistently mis-reads the relationships and situations around her as much as she mis-reads her own heart. The novel features a wonderful cast of characters, including Emma's hypochondriac father, the odiously prideful Mrs. Elton, the mysterious and reserved Jane Fairfax, and Miss Bates, who never stops talking. (Summary by Elizabeth Klett). --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/colin-holbrook/support

This is a LibriVox public domain recording. This book draws together some of Jane Austen's earliest literary efforts. It includes "Love & Freindship" and "Lesley Castle" both told through the medium of letters written by the characters. It also contains her wonderful "History of England" and a "Collection of Letters" and lastly a chapter containing "Scraps".In these offerings, we may see the beginnings of Miss Austen's literary style. We may also discern traces of characters that we encounter in her later works. G. K. Chesterton in his preface, for example, says of a passage in Love and Freindship; "... is there not the foreshadowing of another and more famous father; and do we not hear for a moment, in the rustic cottage by the Uske, the unmistakable voice of Mr. Bennet?" These works are certainly worth  --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/colin-holbrook/support

This is a LibriVox public domain recording. This recording includes a selection of Jane Austen's letters, edited by Susan Coolidge and chosen from the collection of Austen's great-nephew, Edward, Lord Brabourne. The letters are mostly addressed to Austen's sister Cassandra, with whom she was very close. There are also some letters written to two of her nieces, Anna Austen Lefroy and Fanny Knight. They include some references to her published work, including Sense and Sensibility (abbreviated "S and S"), Pride and Prejudice (also called First Impressions, or P and P), Mansfield Park ("MP") and Emma. They are also replete with details about her family life, including the extended families and careers of her brothers, James, Edward, Frank, Henry, and Charles. (Summary by Elizabeth Klett) --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/colin-holbrook/support

This is a LibriVox public domain recording. Jane Austen demonstrated her mastery of the epistolary novel genre in Lady Susan, which she wrote in 1795 but never published. Although the primary focus of this short novel is the selfish behavior of Lady Susan as she engages in affairs and searches for suitable husbands for herself and her young daughter, the actual action shares its importance with Austen's manipulation of her characters' behavior by means of their reactions to the letters that they receive. The heroine adds additional interest by altering the tone of her own letters based on the recipient of the letter. Thus, the character of Lady Susan is developed through many branches as Austen suggests complications of identity and the way in which that identity is based on interaction rather than on solitary constructions of personality. (Summary from Wikipedia) --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/colin-holbrook/support

This is a LibriVox public domain recording. Northanger Abbey follows Catherine Morland and family friends Mr. and Mrs. Allen as they visit Bath, England. Seventeen year-old Catherine spends her time visiting newly-made friends, such as Isabella Thorpe, and going to balls. Catherine finds herself pursued by Isabella's brother John Thorpe (Catherine's brother James's friend from university), and by Henry Tilney. She also becomes friends with Eleanor Tilney, Henry's younger sister. Henry captivates her with his view on novels and his knowledge of history and the world. General Tilney (Henry and Eleanor's father) invites Catherine to visit their estate, Northanger Abbey, which, because she has been reading Ann Radcliffe's gothic novel The Mysteries of Udolpho, Catherine expects to be dark, ancient and full of fantastical mystery. (Summary by Wikipedia) --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/colin-holbrook/support

This is the complete twenty-fifth book of the Tarzan Series, Book 25, Tarzan and the Tarzan Twins by Edgar Rice Burroughs. This is a LibriVox public domain recording. What could be more thrilling for two youngsters than an invitation to spend their school holiday on the African plantation of the world-famous Tarzan of the Apes! That is exactly the prospect that opens for Doc and Dick, the Tarzan Twins, and their trip is hardly begun before a railroad accident sends them off upon a jungle adventure to rival the exploits of their hero. In the jungle, the Twins meet peril with cannibals, a lost tribe of beast-men from the golden city of Opar, and a beautiful little girl destined to a horrible lifetime as High Priestess of the Sun God. The Twins' escape from the cannibals, their encounter with the Oparians, and their rescue of little Gretchen will delight the heart of any reader, from the youngest to the oldest. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/colin-holbrook/support

An update for why the Tarzan episodes go from 10 to 25. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/colin-holbrook/support

This is the complete tenth book of the Tarzan Series, Book 10, Tarzan and the Ant Men by Edgar Rice Burroughs. This is a LibriVox public domain recording. No man had ever penetrated the Great Thorn Forest until Tarzan of the Apes crashed his plane behind it on his solo flight. Within he finds a beautiful country. But in it lives the Alali, strange Stone Age giants whose women regard all men as less than slaves. And beyond the Alali lies the country of the Ant Men—little people only eighteen inches tall. There, in Trohanadalmakus, Tarzan is an honored guest, until he is captured by the warriors of Veltopismakus in one of the Ant Men's wars. But unknown to the ape-man, they have plans for him—by the advanced science of the little people, Tarzan is shrunk to their size and set to work as a quarry slave. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/colin-holbrook/support

This is the complete nineth book of the Tarzan Series, Book 9, Tarzan and the Golden Lion by Edgar Rice Burroughs. This is a LibriVox public domain recording. Betrayed by a band of international conspirators, Tarzan is drugged and left to die in the jungle. But then a quirk of fate delivers him into the hands of the frightful priests of Opar, the last bastion of lost Atlantis. La, High Priestess of the Flaming God, spares his life once again, driven by her hopeless love for the ape-man, only to find her act rewarded by the betrayal of her own people. To save her, Tarzan flees with La into the legendary Valley of Diamonds, while Jad-bal-ja, his faithful golden lion, follows. Ahead lies a land where sentient gorillas rule over servile humans. And behind, Esteban Miranda—who looks exactly like Tarzan—plots further treachery. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/colin-holbrook/support

This is the complete eighth book of the Tarzan Series, Book 8, Tarzan The Terrible by Edgar Rice Burroughs. This is a LibriVox public domain recording. In the previous novel, during the early days of World War I, Tarzan discovered that his wife Jane was not killed in a fire set by German troops, but was in fact alive. In this novel two months have gone by and Tarzan is continuing to search for Jane. Driven by the single-minded purpose of tracking the missing Jane and her German abductor, Tarzan braves the forbidding wastes of the great barrier swamps to enter the primeval land of Pal-ul-don—an unforgiving world of tailed humanoids pitted in unrelenting war, where the fierce reptilian gryf stalks its prey. As Jane battles to free herself from captivity in A-lur, the City of Light, and flees deeper into the deadly environs of the strange land, she must learn to hone her own jungle skills and emerge as a heroine in her own right…or succumb to the merciless perils of savage Pal-ul-don. Meanwhile, a fierce stranger follows Tarzan into the interior, bearing a rifle and bandoliers, bent on a mysterious quest. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/colin-holbrook/support

This is the complete seventh book of the Tarzan Series, Book 7, Tarzan The Untamed by Edgar Rice Burroughs. This is a LibriVox public domain recording. This book follows Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar chronologically. The action is set during World War I. World War I enflames East Africa as German troops raze the Greystokes' estate, where Tarzan returns to find the charred, lifeless remains of his beloved Jane. Consumed by vengeance, the ape-man wages guerrilla warfare against the hated enemy, using his most savage tactics to help the Allies drive the invaders from his land. As the British army prevails, Tarzan departs to rejoin the great apes that are his family—only to be confronted by a trackless wasteland that stands in his way. Having endured a trial of unimaginable torment, he enters the inaccessible valley of Xuja, the city of maniacs. Outnumbered by crazed foes and their lion and parrot familiars, the ape-man must liberate his friends from a city where madness rules. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/colin-holbrook/support

This is the complete sixth book of the Tarzan Series, Book 6, Jungle Tales of Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs. This is a LibriVox public domain recording. Jungle Tales of Tarzan is a collection of twelve loosely-connected short stories written by Edgar Rice Burroughs, comprising the sixth book in order of publication in his series about the title character Tarzan. Chronologically, the events recounted in it actually occur between chapters 12 and 13 of the first Tarzan novel, Tarzan of the Apes. (Summary from Wikipedia) How did the helpless child of the shipwrecked couple John and Alice Clayton become the superhuman legend that is Tarzan of the Apes, Lord of the Jungle? The twelve archetypal coming-of-age tales that compose this book tell the full story, finding their place alongside the richest and most meaningful allegories of mythology. Tarzan grows to adulthood among the apes of the jungle, facing the dawning realization that he is not like them—he is a man. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/colin-holbrook/support

This is the complete fifth book of the Tarzan Series, Book 5, Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar by Edgar Rice Burroughs. This is a LibriVox public domain recording. When fate deals a devastating blow to Tarzan and Jane's fortunes, the ape-man must once again refill their coffers from the legendary treasure vaults of Opar, forgotten outpost of lost Atlantis. There awaits the high priestess La, ready to sacrifice Tarzan upon the altar of the Flaming God for having spurned her love, even while the traitorous, half-bestial high priest of Opar schemes to usurp her rule. Meanwhile, Jane faces her own troubles when she falls victim to the machinations of disgraced Belgian officer Lieutenant Werper and a band of ivory and slave traders. But when an earthquake strikes down Tarzan and leaves him with only the memory of his youth as an ape, how will he unravel the nefarious plot that imperils Jane's life and recover the stolen jewels of Opar? --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/colin-holbrook/support

This is the complete fourth book of the Tarzan Series, Book 4, The Son of Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs. This is a LibriVox public domain recording. Alexis Paulvitch, a henchman of Tarzan's now-deceased enemy, Nikolas Rokoff, survived his encounter with Tarzan in the third novel and wants to even the score. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/colin-holbrook/support

This is the complete third book of the Tarzan Series, Book 3, The Beasts of Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs. This is a LibriVox public domain recording. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/colin-holbrook/support

This is the complete second book of the Tarzan Series, Book 2, The Return of Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs. This is a LibriVox public domain recording. The novel picks up where Tarzan of the Apes left off. The ape man, feeling rootless in the wake of his noble sacrifice of his prospects of wedding Jane Porter, leaves America for Europe to visit his friend Paul d'Arnot. On the ship he becomes embroiled in the affairs of Countess Olga de Coude, her husband, Count Raoul de Coude, and two shady characters attempting to prey on them, Nikolas Rokoff and his henchman Alexis Paulvitch. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/colin-holbrook/support

This is the complete first book of the Tarzan Series, Book 1, Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs. This is a LibriVox public domain recording. Tarzan of the Apes is Burroughs' exciting, if improbable, story of an English lord, left by the death of his stranded parents in the hands of a motherly African ape who raises him as her own. Although he is aware that he is different from the apes of his tribe, who are neither white nor hairless, he nevertheless regards them as his “people.” When older, larger, stronger apes decide that he an undesirable to be killed or expelled from the tribe, it is fortunate that Tarzan has learned the use of primitive weapons. Although small and weak by ape standards, Tarzan is a human of god-like strength and agility to men who discover him. By studying these people, he gradually decides he is not an ape at all, but human. And when he meets Jane, a beautiful American girl marooned with her father and friends on the hostile coast of Africa, Tarzan conceives love for her. When they are unexpectedly rescued before Tarzan can find a way to reveal his feelings to Jane, he determines to become civilized and follow her into the world of people – to find her and wed her, though he must cross continents and oceans, and compete with two other suitors for her hand. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/colin-holbrook/support

A quick update on the direction of the podcast. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/colin-holbrook/support

This is the complete sixth book of the Mars Series, Book 6, The Master Mind of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs. This is a LibriVox public domain recording. World War I infantry captain Ulysses Paxton is transported to Barsoom, where he encounters evil scientist Ras Thavas and his diabolical brain transplant experiments. Paxton falls in love with the beautiful Valla Dia, whose body has been swapped with the cruel Xaxa, Jeddara of Phundahl. Can Paxton save Valla Dia from a hideous fate and win her hand? --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/colin-holbrook/support

This is the complete fifth book of the Mars Series, Book 5, The Chessmen of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs. This is a LibriVox public domain recording. Tara of Helium, John Carter's second child, is nearly as beautiful as her mother, Deja Thoris, and as independent-minded as her father. These qualities cause her much grief during a long series of imprisonments by hostile aliens. She is aided by a rejected suitor whom she fails to recognize but gradually learns first to trust and then to love, despite what she imagines to be a hopeless chasm between their social classes. A highly evolved race of intelligent beings is discovered in this novel, one of whom forms with Tara a complicated relationship that opens his eyes to the value of certain aspects of life which he and his kind have shed. We also learn of an ancient Martian culture differing markedly from the technologically advanced civilizations of other city-states; one of its pastimes is a bloody variation of Martian chess, played with human beings as the game pieces. For variety of character and incident, this novel is unsurpassed by its four predecessors in the series. (Summary by Thomas Copeland) --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/colin-holbrook/support

This is the complete fourth book of the Mars Series, Book 4, Thuvia, Maid of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs. This is a LibriVox public domain recording. The fourth book of the Barsoom series, Thuvia, Maid of Mars takes up the story of Thuvia, now Princess of Ptarth, and Carthoris, son of John Carter and Dejah Thoris. Thuvia is betrothed to Kulan Tith, Jeddak of Kaol in an arranged marriage. She spurns the advances of a suitor, Astok of Dusar, who then plots to abduct Thuvia, and frame Carthoris for the crime, igniting a war between Kaol, Ptarth and Helium --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/colin-holbrook/support

This is the complete third book of the Mars Series, Book 3, The Warlord of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs. This is a LibriVox public domain recording. After the horrendous battle at the end of the previous book, which ended with the destruction of the religion of Issus, John Carter's wife and two other women were locked in a slowly rotating prison attached to the Temple of the Sun, each of whose hundreds of cells are only open to the outside world once every year. In the meantime, Carter's friend Xodar has become the new Jeddak (chief or king) of the black Martian First Born, and those white Martian therns who reject the old religion likewise gain a new unnamed leader, but there are still some who wish to keep the old discredited religion going, including the therns' erstwhite leader, the Holy Hekkador Matai Shang. John Carter discovers that a First Born named Thurid knows the secret of the Temple of the Sun and he and Matai Shang want to rescue the Holy Thern's daughter Phaidor, who has been imprisoned with Dejah Thoris and another Barsoomian princess, Thuvia of Ptarth, in the Temple jail for several hundred days. Unfortunately, Thurid, to spite Carter, gets Matai Shang to also take Dejah Thoris and Thuvia along with them. Carter follows them in the hope of liberating his beloved wife. - Summary by Wikipedia --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/colin-holbrook/support

This is the complete second book of the Mars Series, Book 2, The gods of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs. This is a LibriVox public domain recording. In this second volume of the Barsoom series, John Carter returns to Mars to learn that his heroic effort to salvage the atmosphere plant saved the planet's inhabitants, but he finds himself in the land of the dead. Luck restores his friends and even his son to him, and with them he escapes his imprisonment after unmasking (but not deposing) the cruel "goddess" Issus. He finds the Martians unready, however, to fling off their ancient religion and face the frightful truth of what "eternal peace" awaits those who make the voluntary pilgrimage to the Valley Dor. Worse, his wife's father and grandfather have failed to return from searching for him, and his wife in despair has taken the fatal pilgrimage down the River Iss. In their absence his worst enemy has seized power, and since John Carter has committed the unforgivable crime of returning from the land of the dead, all agree—for different reasons and with different intentions—that he must return to it. (Summary by T. A. Copeland) --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/colin-holbrook/support

This is the complete first book of theMars Series, Book 1, The Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs. This is a LibriVox public domain recording. John Carter, an American Civil War veteran, goes prospecting in Arizona and, when set upon by Indians, is mysteriously transported to Mars, called "Barsoom" by its inhabitants. Carter finds that he has great strength on this planet, due to its lesser gravity. Carter soon falls in among the Tharks, a nomadic tribe of the planet's warlike, four-armed, green inhabitants. Thanks to his strength and combat abilities he rises in position in the tribe and earns the respect eventually the friendship of Tars Tarkas, one of the Thark chiefs. The Tharks subsequently capture Dejah Thoris, Princess of Helium, a member of the humanoid red Martian race. The red Martians inhabit a loose network of city states and control the desert planet's canals, along which its agriculture is concentrated. Carter rescues her from the green men to return her to her people. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/colin-holbrook/support