Although Edgar Rice Burroughs wrote many stories about societies of the distant future or past, peopled with anything from prehistoric creatures to aliens, I believe that this is the best representation of his talent for writing fast paced, fun to read science fiction. Although he did not have the advantage modern authors do of capitalizing on recent scientific advances for story material, he draws the reader in, especially in this book, with his ability to create a world of wild imagination and make the reader feel like they are part of the action. This is the book which made me an avid Burroughs fan and encouraged me to read the Mars, Tarzan (and other Pellucidar novels) in their entirety. <p> Pellucidar continues the tale of David, the lovable protagonist from At The Earths Core. It tells the story of his return trip to the fabled subterrainian stone-age land known as Pellucidar. Here he must locate old friends, reunite with his lost loved one, and face his all-but-forgotton foes. <p> Burroughs writing is simply fabulous, and even makes the characters seem all the more realistic, though many of them are not even human, but sentient creatures who can exist only in the minds of great writers like Burroughs, and in the land known as Pellucidar.
For two hundred years, a civilized America had cut off all contact with the war-ruined Eastern Hemisphere until such places as Europe and Great Britain had become mere legends. Then Jefferson Turck dared take his U.S. aero-sub across the 30th Longitude West on the mission of a new Columbus, and a fascinating voyage of discovery. <p> First published in 1915, the motivations for this story are obvious. The nations of the western hemisphere have taken an extreme isolationist stance in the early years of World War I, to the point that 200 years later they do not even know whether anything or anyone has survived the massive armed conflagration that began in the early 20th century. The hero inadvertently gets stranded in Europe and makes all of the startling discoveries of the outcome of the conflict and ensuing 200 years. <p> The story is ERBs standard fare. However, like many of his books from this period, there are a few themes to the story that are of interest above and beyond the light adventure story. The elements foremost in this novel are the destructive nature of war and racism. There is also a certain amount of naivete from the period and the relative newness of the United States as a world power. <p> Most of Burroughs books are good reading for pre-teen to early adolescent, and nostalgic adults; this one is no exception. <p> I consider this a must have for anyone who likes sci-fi/fantasy.
The Beasts of Tarzan is an excellent adventure story and well worth the read. <p> The Beasts of Tarzan is a novel written by Edgar Rice Burroughs, the third in his series of books about the title character Tarzan. Originally serialized in All-Story Cavalier magazine in 1914, the novel was first published in book form by A. C. McClurg in 1916. <p> Not long after Tarzan claims his hereditary title of Lord Greystoke and marries Jane, their infant son, Jack, is kidnapped in London by his old Russian enemies, Nikolas Rokoff and Alexis Paulvitch. Following an anonymous call about the whereabouts of Jack, Tarzan himself falls into Rokoffs trap and is imprisoned aboard a ship carrying Jack. Jane, fearing Tarzan was entering a trap, follows him and also finds herself in Rokoffs clutches aboard the boat. Rokoff sets sail to Africa, eventually exiling Tarzan on an island near the African coast and telling Tarzan that Jack will be left with a cannibal tribe and raised as one of their own. <p> Using his jungle skill and primal intelligence, Tarzan wins the help of Sheeta, the vicious panther, a tribe of great apes led by the intelligent Akut, and the native warrior Mugambi. With their aid, Tarzan reaches the mainland, kills Rokoff, and tracks down his wife and son. Paulvitch, the other villain, is presumed dead, but manages to escape into the jungle. <p> This is as addictive as previous Tarzans stories. In this one the archenemy of Tarzan finally gets his desserts. You have to read it!
Tarzan the Terrible is a novel written by Edgar Rice Burroughs, the eighth in his series of books about the title character Tarzan. <p> 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. <p> In this novel two months have gone by and Tarzan is continuing to search for Jane. He has tracked her to a hidden valley called Pal-ul-don, which means Land of Men. In Pal-ul-don Tarzan finds a real Jurassic Park filled with dinosaurs, notably the savage Triceratops-like Gryfs, which unlike their prehistoric counterparts are carnivorous. The lost valley is also home to two different races of tailed human-looking creatures, the Ho-don (hairless and white skinned) and the Waz-don (hairy and black-skinned). Tarzan befriends Ta-den, a Ho-don warrior, and Om-at, the Waz-don chief of the tribe of Kor-ul-ja. In this new world he becomes a captive but so impresses his captors with his accomplishments and skills that they name him Tarzan-Jad-Guru (Tarzan the Terrible), which is the name of the novel. <p> Jane is also being held captive in Pal-ul-don, having been brought there by her German captor, who has since become dependent on her due to his own lack of jungle survival skills. She becomes a pawn in a religious power struggle that consumes much of the novel. <p> With the aid of his native allies, Tarzan continues to pursue his beloved to rescue her and set things to right, going through an extended series of fights and escapes to do so. In the end success seems beyond even his ability to achieve, until in the final chapter he and Jane are saved by their son Korak, who has been searching for Tarzan just as Tarzan has been searching for Jane. <p> Tarzan the Terrible is an important work in the Tarzan series, continuing a sequence beginning with Tarzan the Untamed and concluding in Tarzan and the Golden Lion and Tarzan and the Ant Men, in which Burroughs vivid imagination and storytelling abilities hit their peak, and which is generally considered a highlight of the series.
Having already created two highly memorable science fiction heroes in Tarzan and John Carter, Edgar Rice Burroughs begins his third major series with David Innes. With friend Abner Perry, they dive their mole, or burroughing machine, straight through the earths surface where they discover the savage land of Pellucidar. Here, where dinosaurs still exist and mankind is enslaved by the reptilian Mahars, David and his friend are forced to face unknown perils and survive in a hostile environment (and of course, win the beautiful lady). <p> At the Earths Core is another highly entertaining science fiction novel from Edgar Rice Burroughs. Even though his format is formulaic, youre always assured of fast paced adventure in his novels. The Pellucidar series is a worthy addition to Burroughs body of work. <p> A terrific adventure novel that will immerse you in a world with simple, descriptive language and rollicking action sequences.
The Return of Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs is the second volume in the Tarzan series. First published in 1913, this book is a work of genius. There is something about Burroughs writing that is captivating, and this book is no exception. The Return of Tarzan is a highly entertaining volume. <p> The book first starts with Tarzan on a ship going from New York to France. On this trip, he makes friends with a Countess and makes an enemy with her brother, a Russian. The Russian will attempt to cause Tarzan problems for the following months. After growing tired of France, Tarzan decides to return to Africa. However, his journey is beset with adventures in desert and wilderness. <p> The story leads to Tarzan finding Opar, the lost outpost of Atlantis, in the heart of Africa. Although both the men and women of Opar are white, the women retained their beauty, while the men are more ape-like in appearance. From here, there are more adventures and peril. <p> For great adventures, as you may have come to expect from Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Return of Tarzan will meet your needs. <p> This is, to my mind, the best of the Tarzan series. If you like Raiders of the Lost Ark then youll love this sequel to Tarzan of the Apes. Like Raiders, The Return is chalk full of adventure. You name it, its got it: desert adventure, ocean cruises, spy stuff, lost cities, beautiful women, Paris, jungle adventure (naturally), evil Russian villians, etc., etc. <p> The Return is definitive proof of why Tarzan is perhaps the greatest adventure hero of all time!
The Land That Time Forgot is Burroughss best work, and the definitive lost world tale. The three sections are semi-independent, but work as a whole in unexpected ways. In Part I, we are introduced to the Island of Caprona and the bizarre prehistoric land of Caspak hidden inside it, but only after a long submarine journey. Before the hero can solve the mystery of the strange evolutionary system of Caspak, we cut to Part II, which immediately launches us into an adventure on the other side of the Island with a new narrator. Many plot strands come to an end at the conclusion of this second section, but there are still some questions left, still some mysteries, and Part III brings it all to a great conclusion, when we finally see behind the curtains and learn the enigma of Caspak. <p> Burroughss writing is simple, tough, and exciting, and Caspak provides endless excitement from all corners of pre-history and fantasy: dinosaurs, sea monsters, cavemen, giant mammals, and winged humanoids! And there are airplanes and German subs as well. But what really sets this novel apart from other, similar stories, is the evolutionary concept that rules Caspak. I will say no more…the riddle of Caspak is the best of many reasons to read this wonderful novel, presented complete for the first time in nearly half a century.
Thuvia, Maid of Mars is the 4th of 11 John Carter novels from the pen of Edgar Rice Burroughs. It first appeared in April 1916, as a three-part serial in the magazine All Story Weekly. This is the first Carter novel that does not feature John Carter himself as the central character; he only makes a brief cameo appearance early on. Instead, the action mantle is taken up by Carthoris, Carters son, but fortunately, Carter Junior turns out to be just as good a swashbuckler as the old man. <p> In this installment, Princess Thuvia of Ptarth has been kidnapped by the spineless Prince Astok of Dusar, which abduction almost causes a world war on Barsoom (Mars). Young Carthoris, in his quest to free his beloved princess, runs across deserted cities, a forgotten kingdom, banths (10-legged Barsoomian lions), ethereal warriors, mucho swordplay, giant white apes, and on and on. As is usual for these books, the amount of action that Burroughs packs into a small compass is quite surprising. Whereas previous Carter books seem to read more like fantasy/fairy tales than science fiction, this installment veers even more to the fantastic, mainly in the use of those phantom warriors just mentioned. These bowmen are called up from the minds of the remaining members of the lost city of Lothar, and have no real concrete existence. However, their arrows can still kill. <p> In this book we also get, for the first time, a nice, detailed look at life in Helium; what the people do, how they live and the like. We also receive a biological explanation of how Carthoris, who was 10 years old but a seeming adult in the previous books, got to be that way. The worldwide peace that apparently prevails at the end of book 3, The Warlord of Mars, is shown in this volume to be not as widespread as was inferred, which makes for some nice tense situations. So this is a good, fast-moving, detailed entry in the series. <p> This is a fun entry in the John Carter series, one that all lovers of fast-moving fantasy should enjoy.
Burroughs Best Martian Tale – Conventional wisdom has it that the first three books of Burroughs Martian series, A Princess of Mars, The Gods of Mars, and The Warlord of Mars form an excellent trilogy and all the rest of the Martian tales are quite poorly done in comparison. You will disagree. <p> Here are two examples as to why Chessmen is Burroughs best work in this series. <p> [1] You can hardly conceive of a more ghastly creature than a spider-being who lives as a parasite on headless human bodies, but that is a perfect description of Ghek the Kaldane, one of the central figures of the book. Burroughs takes this repulsive monstrosity and makes him such a loveable character that you cannot help but like him. <p> [2] Burroughs not only wrote a good yarn, he wrapped his tale around a striking boardgame that he had invented–jetan, or Martian chess. <p> Its no real trick to invent a chess variant. There are thousands of them, and most of them are rubbish. What is so singular about jetan is that it is a good chess variant. I read Chessmen as a child, and after reading it, the first thing I had to do was make a jetan set and play the game. I whiled away several enjoyable hours with the game. John Gollon, a noted authority on chess variants, had a similar experience when he was writing Chess Variations. He thought hed include a chapter on jetan for some comic relief, so he made a jetan set and played a few games. He found jetan quite good–very playable and interesting. He then pronounced jetan not a mere novelty, but … a respectable game. <p> These two singular achievments (Ghek and jetan) are not the only details that make Chessmen so enjoyable. Gahan of Gathol (aka Turan the Panthan) makes for a satisfying hero, and Tara of Helium fills the bill quite nicely for a damsel in distress. <p> The heros are noble, the villians are wicked, the cause is just, and the action is nonstop. Great escapist reading.
Edgar Rice Burroughs did not intended to write a trilogy, but his 1914 pulp novel The Warlord of Mars completes the story begun in A Princess of Mars and continued in The Gods of Mars and finally brings John Carter and his beloved Dejah Thoris, Princess of Helium (i.e., no cliffhanger this time around, boys and girls). <p> The characters are all extremely likable. John Carter is the perfect southern gentleman. Honorable, loyal, incredibly brave, respectful to women, extremely handsome; a perfect hero who is never boorish or conceited. <p> The story picks up six months after the conclusion of The Gods of Mars, with our hero not knowing whether she is dead or alive in the Temple of the Sun of the Holy Therns where he last saw here with the blade of Phaidor was descending towards her heart as the evil Issus, queen of the First Born, had locked his mate in a cell that would not open for another year. However, it turns out that the exiled leader of the Therns has reached the trapped women to rescue his daughter and to seek revenge on Carter for exposing his evil cult. <p> The focus of The Warlord of Mars is on Carters relentless pursuit of the villainous Thurid who have taken his beloved princess from the south pole of Barsoom across rivers, desert, jungles, and ice to the forbidden lands of the north in the city of Kadabra where the combined armies of the green, red and black races attack the yellow tribes of the north, thereby justifying the books title. It is interesting to note that Carters heroics in this novel have the same sort of over the top implausibility we find in contemporary Hollywood blockbusters as ERB pours on the action sequences one on top of another. Whether he is scaling towers in the dark of night or surviving in a pit for over a week without food and water, John Carter is a manly hero in the great pulp fiction tradition of which Edgar Rice Burroughs was an admitted master. <p> Overall, the Martian series is Burroughs best work, avoiding the repetition that overwhelmed his Tarzan series and providing a lot more creativity (ever play Martian chess?).