Thursday, September 09, 2010

The Secret of Exum

I have an article in the latest issue of the Burroughs Bulletin (#83) (http://www.burroughsbibliophiles.com/index.html), wherein I demonstrate (conclusively, I think) that Edgar Rice Burroughs not only relied on Percival Lowell's hand-drawn maps of Mars for inspiration when he wrote his John Carter of Mars novels, but that he left us a clue - the ruined Martian city of Exum - to unlocking the secret of how to properly place the Martian cities from his stories on modern-day NASA maps of the Martian surface.

At some point I'll post the article online. I'm kind of proud of it, considering the fact that fans have been struggling to reconcile Burroughs' Mars geography with the real thing ever since his first story was published in 1912.

FOLLOWUP:
My article is available online at http://www.prismnet.com/unigames/Secret_of_Exum.pdf