Confession time: I super duper conflated this with John Carter. I was very confused for a while, and this certainly exceeded my expectations, which is what I assign 4 star reads.

A really neat thing about this was there’s like a… directors commentary? I guess? Where, in between each short story, the author puts in a few sentences. At first I thought this would be really annoying but it doesn’t overstay it’s welcome and it’s often really interesting. Especially the context of the stories spring boarding him into other works, such as Fahrenheit. He also talks about how X story is situated in his mind in the 50s, when reactionary elements seeded anti-intellectualism we now see the product of today. But also we’ve come a long way too. it’s quite interesting to me. It’s impossible to separate this from the author as a result; but in the most unique way I’ve read lol.

I expected pulp action fantasy and stayed for the specificity of theme that makes “good” classics embed themselves in cannon (often). Loneliness, especially, is handled well here. Visually, thematically, and well articulated. As with most “old” sci-fi, the dialogue is the weakest link. I kind of wonder what I’d have rated this without the fascinating commentary and had I not been expecting something completely different. It could have been 3 stars. I’m not sure. Regardless, it’s this kind of serendipity that endears me to plenty of books I remember fondly, so it feels a certain kind of fair.