Edgar Rice Burroughs Style

The style of Edgar Rice Burroughs is different from what you find in most SF today. For one thing Burroughs was a writer who preferred to focus on the adventure side of his stories rather than on technology. For another he envisioned vast civilizations on the planets he wrote about. He was a world creator par excellence. More than other authors, he also knew how to introduce you to a story. He usually began in the present time and on Earth, in familiar surroundings. In Beyond the Farthest Star, for example, a man dies on earth during a war battle. The reader can easily identify with him. Then Burroughs transports us to Poloda, a far-off planet. In this way the transition is smooth, which is unlike many modern SF books that start in unfamiliar territory. Burroughs was a master storyteller and modern authors can learn many lessons from his writing style.