Burroughs Books

The cover to the Del Rey edition of _The Gods of Mars_ that I have at hand is a Michael Whelan painting of John Carter and Tars Tarkus fending off a mob of blue-skinned aliens with flat tails and medusalike hair. A giant boulder is behind them, two pale moons are in the sky, and a six-limbed white ape is on the edge of the action. There is a ring of mountains and cliffs in the background.

This prompts me to muse a bit on Burroughs illustrators. The main illustrator of Burroughs first editions from 1916 on was J. Allen St. John. His sketches were somewhat rough, and his more detailed illustrations were muted paintings or washes. He was not, perhaps, a great artist, but he was a great Edgar Rice Burroughs artist. His style was Victorian, which matched the style and plot of Burroughs's romances.

St. John directly influenced the art of two younger artists, Roy Krenkel, Jr. and Frank Frazetta, who did many covers and interior illustrations of Burroughs for Ace Books. Both Krenkel and Frazetta are, I think, technically superior to St. John. A measure of this is the fact that Krenkel won a 1963 Hugo for his Burroughs illustrations. Boris Vellajo is stylistically similar to St. John, Krenkle, and Frazetta. He is as erotic as St. John was Victorian, but he holds that eroticism a bit in check on all his Burroughs illustrations that I have seen.

Whelan is a bit in this tradition in that his paintings are realistic. But Whelan's art is more "solid," whereas the other illustrators used more sketches and washes. His style is more like that of Kelly Freas.

In the early 1960s, Ballantine employed a series of artists-- including Robert Abbett, Neal Adams, and Richard Powers-- to give Burroughs's books a more modern, impressionistic look. The artists, especially Powers, were competent enough. But the attempt was abortive. Burroughs was not a modern writer, and a modern look simply did not go well with his stories.

I do not pretend to have an encyclopedic knowledge of Burroughs illustrators, but I believe that a few generalizations can be made. Since Burroughs's heroes and heroines tend to be unclothed, handsome, and beautiful the illustrator should be good with human anatomy. (Frank R. Paul's stiff, jodhpurred people will not do.)There are lots of beasts, imaginary and real, in a Burroughs romance. The artist must be good with nonhuman anatomy as well. An old-fashioned, realistic style is more appropriate than a modern, impressionistic style. And lots of detail in the illustrations is preferable to artwork that is "sketchy." The artist should make the setting "come alive" for the reader.

But we seem to have drifted a bit from the novel itself. _The Gods of Mars_ was first published as a five-part serial in _All-Story Magazine_ in 1913 and was a sequel to _A Princess of Mars_ (1912), the first Barsoomian novel. At the close of _Princess_, John Carter is whisked back to Earth, with Barsoom possibly about to lose its atmosphere. In _Gods_, he finally manages to return and launch himself off in a series of new adventures. Some reviewers have correctly noted that Burroughs is careless about many details in this novel. But it seems to me that he is nevertheless quite good with his descriptive passages. Here is a sampling of some passages that seem to me to have a kind of dreamlike sparkle:

As far aloft as I could see the stems and branches and twigs [of the giant trees] were as smooth and as highly polished as the newest of American-made pianos. The wood of some of the trees was as black as ebony, while their nearest neighbours might perhaps gleam in the forest as clear and white as the finest china, or, again, they were azure, scarlet, or deepest purple. (13)

To my left the sea extended as far as the eye could reach, before me only a vague, dim line indicated its farther shore, while at my right a mighty river, broad, placid, and majestic, flowed between scarlet banks to empty into the quiet sea before me. (13)

The face of the entire cliff was, as later inspection conclusively proved, so shot with veins and patches of solid gold as to quite present the appearance of a solid wall of that precious metal except where it was broken by outcroppings of ruby, emerald, and diamond boulders-- a faint and alluring indication at the unguessable riches which lay deeply buried beneath the magnificent surface. (21-22)

For quite half an hour we descended [down a black chasm in a giant mountain] and then the shaft terminated abrubtly in the dome of a mighty subterranean world. Below us rose and fell the billows of a buried sea. A phosphorescent radiance illuminated the scene. Thousands of ships dotted the bosom of the ocean. Little islands rose here and there to support the strange and colourless vegetation of this strange world. (77)

It was still dark when we passed the northern boundary of the ice cap and the area of clouds. Below us lay a typical Martian landscape. Rolling ochre sea bottom of long dead seas, low surrounding hills, with here and there the grim silent cities of the dead past; great piles of mighty architecture tenanted only by age-old memories of a once powerful race and by the great white apes of Barsoom. (121)

Now _this_, by the double moons of Barsoom, is why you read Edgar Rice Burroughs! Not because he was a great writer (he wasn't), or even because he was the best of the American scientific romance writers (he wasn't). But when he was cooking with gas, he sometimes made a connection with the little exotic story teller sitting cross-legged with his hookah in your subconscious. Burroughs's imagination, admittedly undisciplined, brought a fantasy to life.

cover art by Don Maitz. David Lake takes a shot at continuing the saga of Edgar Rice Burroughs. When Tom Carson caught sight of the third planet of 82 Eridani he recognized at once its resemblance to that imaginary Mars called "Barsoom" of the ancient novelist Edgar Rice Burroughs' character John Carter, Warlord of Mars. Of course, there were indeed vital variations that would eventually trip up the self-deceived travelers from the 24th century Earth. Therein hangs the tale. David Lake wrote another one, that is Warlords of Xuma.

These last words of Burroughs will have great poignancy for his fans, but might not be all that meaningful to the casual reader. He writes about mundane everyday occurrences, memories of his eventful life, makes extensive literary references and provides loving descriptions of his cats. For me, the Burroughs magic is here in abundance and this book helps to complete the big picture of his life and work. It's not all smooth sailing, though, as his repetitive railings against the "war on drugs" can become a bit tedious. Obscure references are explained in the explanatory notes: I was interested to see he was a member of IOT (International Order of Thanateros - see the books Liber Kaos and Liber Null & Psychonaut: An Introduction to Chaos Magic) and friends with V. Vale (See Re/Search Publications like Industrial Culture Handbook: Re # 6/7 and Re/Search #14: Incredibly Strange Music, Volume I (Re/Search ; 14)).

Some sections are funny, some are sad (especially where he writes about Joan Vollmer and his family) and some very interesting from a literary perspective. There are powerful passages of great beauty that stick in the mind. His love for his cats and for other animals like lemurs is very moving and shows that he may have been larger than life, but in the end he was very human. So, to wrap it up: Last Words is essential reading for the Burroughs enthusiast and the Burroughs scholar, to finally understand the man and his writing. Phew ... I am relieved, to know how much he loved some people and his pets, in the end.

Queer

Junky

There are Burroughs fans who love this novel, but I'm not a big fan of this particular story. You can read about it in the reviews of much cheaper editions than this one. Just a reminder that McClurg is the first edition and G&D's are reprints. "All Lustadt was in an uproar. The mad king had escaped."

great book, but unfortunately the binding broke as it is like 40 years old. literally.

Another Caspak book, and another main character. A fan of 'B' names for this series, was Burroughs, as this one's name is Bradley.

Taking a trip out from Fort Dinosaur with a party of other men, things turn sour when they run into a tyrannosaur.

When they run into the winged men called the Wieroo they don't have too many fans, either.

Even the best ¨critical¨ ¨theory¨ is just stuff that's been made up to sound big and clever - and this anthology's no different. Some of the pieces are better than others - in that they correlate more with my personal prejudices. One might expect a book about WSB and Globalisation to critique Burroughs's engagement with the Control Machine: Nike/Gap ads, work with corp-rockers U2 blah blah, publication by Murdoch and so on. Strangely this is all omitted. There's not much point pretending it didn't happen just coz it's too hard for you. At least WSB never pretended he was a lefty like these guys do.

"Tarzan the Magnificent," the 21st book in the Tarzan series by Edgar Rice Burroughs, consists of two novellas: "Tarzan and the Magic Men" (1936) and "Tarzan and the Elephant Men" (1937), the latter of which is a minor sequel to "Tarzan and the City of Gold." In the first novella the American travel writer Stanley Wood tells a fantastic story of another one of those lost cities in the heart of Africa, where women warriors are ruled by an evil magician and there is a great diamond called the Gonfal with hypnotic powers. Tarzan dismisses the story until he sees the Gonfal at work. The result is a standard ERB adventure yarn: Tarzan goes to the lost city to rescue another lost Englishman, resists the charms and powers of a savage queen, so on and so forth. Burroughs has been using this formula since "The Return of Tarzan" when the Lord of the Jungle first encountered La, the beautiful high priestess of the flaming god of Opar. The second novella returns us to Cathne, the City of Gold, and Athne, the City of Ivory, where Tarzan takes on Phoros, the dictator of Athne. This means more political intrigue in the effort to put Zygo on the throne of Athne and another gladiator fight in the arena between the Lord of the Jungle and Hyrack. The second story really has nothing to do with the first and really constitutes little more than ERB tying up some loose ends from "Tarzan and the City of Gold" (which was also something of a misnomer of a title since all the action is in the City of Ivory in both stories).

Zero Character Development; Tarzan fights dinosaurs and prehistoric creatures.
If you have read less than a hundred books, and you are under 20, and you like Tarzan, you will love this! Look for the book with a cover illustration by Boris (it shows a dinosaur).
Edgar Rice Burroughs is great!

Comes across a bit like watered down Burroughs, but this writing is interesting because it's so stripped down--acoustic Burroughs--lacking the electrical force of the explosion of images, and rape and plundering of words which typifies Burroughs--but while retaining Burroughs' subject matter.

This first piece in this book however is the exception--"Thanksgiving Day, Nov. 28, 1986"--lays out Burroughs' position on America rather sweetly.