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The Fiction of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Part III: The Westerns and The Mucker

The Fiction of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Part III: The Westerns and The Mucker

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Westerns by Edgar Rice Burroughs: The Bandit of Hell’s Bend and The Deputy Sheriff of Commanche County (Ace Books); Apache Devil and The War Chief (Ballantine Books). Covers by Boris Vallejo, the Brothers Hildebrandt, and Frank McCarthy.

Like many pulp writers of his day, ERB dipped his toes into the western genre. He wrote four: two pretty standard ones and two that incorporate the Native American experience. He knew something of what he wrote, having worked on his brother’s ranch in Idaho at age 16, and having served with the 7th cavalry in Arizona in the late 1890s.

His first standard western was The Bandit of Hell’s Bend (1924), followed by The Deputy Sheriff of Commanche County in 1940. Both of my copies are later printings from Ace with very cool Boris illustrations. I like these better than many of Boris’s paintings because they seem less static. He does a good job of portraying action here.

In Bandit, we have a disgraced ranch foreman and a young woman who has inherited the ranch, and various villains who want to steal the ranch from her because they know there’s silver on it. The foreman, Bull, has to rise to the occasion. There’s great action and pretty good plotting, although you’ll probably figure it out pretty soon. And, as always, ERB creates sympathetic heroes and dastardly villains.

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Reading for the End of the World Redux

Reading for the End of the World Redux

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Eight years ago, in the wake of the 2016 election, I penned a piece for Black Gate that I called “Reading for the End of the World”, in which I listed a dozen books I thought ideal for helping us get through the four years of turmoil and uncertainty that loomed ahead. I wrote it, posted it, and moved on with my life, little suspecting that coping with that particular cultural earthquake was not a one-time job like getting a vasectomy, but would instead turn out to be an onerous recurring chore like mowing the lawn or doing the laundry.

Well, if He did it again, I suppose I should too. Therefore, once again, “In the spirit of the incipient panic, withered expectations, and rampant paranoia that seem to dominate our current national life, I offer twelve books to get you through the next four years (however long they may actually last): a reading list for the New Normal.” (Groundhog Day is a movie, not a book; that’s why it’s not here.) In 2017 I hoped that the books I discussed would provide some much-needed insight or diversion, and that’s my hope for these twelve additional volumes. Some things have changed after the passage of eight years, however, so now I suppose I should also state that these books were neither written nor selected with the help of A.I. (Of course, that just begs the larger question — how do you know that “Thomas Parker” is a real person? Short answer: you don’t. Then again, I don’t know if any of you are real people, either.)

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Half a Century of Reading Tolkien: Part Two – The Fellowship of the Ring by JRR Tolkien

Half a Century of Reading Tolkien: Part Two – The Fellowship of the Ring by JRR Tolkien

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‘I will take the Ring,’ he said, ‘though I do not know the way.’

Frodo from The Council of Elrond from The Fellowship of the Ring (1954)

I never saw it, but once upon a time, some hippies and ancillary types were given to emblazoning FRODO LIVES on bedroom walls and the backs of denim jackets. The Lord of the Rings, the literary creation of a conservative Oxford University professor of English Literature and Language, had somehow hit a chord with the nascent counterculture after its publication in 1954/1955. I imagine, in fact, I know, there are all sorts of popular and academic works purporting to explain why this was. I’ve never been interested in them, preferring the books themselves to present the professor’s ideas.

I have my own, if not particularly original, theories. First, it’s a great adventure story featuring a small, ineffectual-seeming hero who stands up to his world’s greatest force of evil. Second, it came to be seen as a sort of rallying cry against the dark powers of the modern world. I don’t know Prof. Tolkien’s politics, though I suspect he was a small-c conservative. It’s clear he viewed the loss of tradition and the dark Satanic mills blotting out the green and pleasant England of his youth were a terrible assault on civilization (this anti-modernist attitude is an important element of Michael Moorcock’s disdain for him). Third, the counterculture’s love for anything pastoral and ante-technological was probably the most important reason for its breakout into the mainstream’s consciousness.

I never discussed it with him, but I feel confident when writing that my father liked The Lord of the Rings primarily for the first reason and somewhat for the second (he was very much a BIG-C conservative) a bit. He most definitely did not like it for the last. When I first read it all that mattered to me was that first reason. With every revisit over the ensuing decades, I’ve discovered something new. That has carried on with my most recent reread.
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Midnight Rambles: H.P. Lovecraft in Gotham by David J. Goodwin

Midnight Rambles: H.P. Lovecraft in Gotham by David J. Goodwin

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Midnight Rambles: H.P. Lovecraft in Gotham (Empire State Editions, November 7, 2023)

David J. Goodwin’s Midnight Rambles: H.P. Lovecraft in Gotham provides a narrow and deep slice of H. P. Lovecraft’s biography, detailing his personal and professional life during the few years he lived in New York City. Deeply researched and full of connections, Goodwin provides correction to some long-held Lovecraft biographical details and does not flinch from detailing Lovecraft’s innate hostility to non-WASP groups, ably describing it in the context of a deeply racist and anti-semitic society.

There are very few people who can claim to be expert on the life and work of H.P. Lovecraft, and Goodwin’s book puts him in range of that small number (such as S.T. Joshi). As he’s written and presented about Lovecraft more than half a dozen times, Goodwin seems poised to rise to stand among the critics named when the storied and controversial author rises in conversation, if he’s not there already. Learn more about Goodwin here.

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A Masterful Three Novella Original Anthology: The New Atlantis, edited by Robert Silverberg

A Masterful Three Novella Original Anthology: The New Atlantis, edited by Robert Silverberg

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The New Atlantis (Warner Books paperback reprint, 1978). Cover by Lou Feck

My latest look at a book from the 1970s treats a major anthology from 1975. The New Atlantis and Other Novellas collects three long stories: “Silhouette,” by Gene Wolfe; “The New Atlantis,” by Ursula K. Le Guin, and “A Momentary Taste of Being,” by James Tiptree, Jr. The project received plenty of notice at awards time – the book as a whole was fifth in the Locus Poll for Best Anthology, “A Momentary Taste of Being” and “Silhouette” were 7th and 9th, respectively, in the Locus Poll for Best Novella, while “The New Atlantis” won the Locus Poll for Best Novelette, and received a Hugo nomination in that category, and both it and the Tiptree also got Nebula nominations.

Let’s look at the individual stories first.

“Silhouette” by Gene Wolfe

Gene Wolfe was a remarkable writer at all lengths — he produced brilliant short-shorts, short stories, novelettes, novellas, novels, series of novels, even a series of series of novels. “Silhouette,” at about 20,000 words, is one of his novellas — and it may be that the novella was his ideal length.

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The Fiction of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Part II: Tarzan and The Land That Time Forgot

The Fiction of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Part II: Tarzan and The Land That Time Forgot

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Tarzan novels #1 – #5 : Tarzan of the Apes, The Return of Tarzan, The Beasts of Tarzan, and The Son of Tarzan (Ballantine Books, December 1983, April 1969, April 1975, April 1975), and Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar (A.L. Burt, 1919). Covers by Charles Ren, Bob Abbett, Neal Adams, and Neal Adams.

Any discussion of Sword & Planet fiction needs to start with Edgar Rice Burroughs and his book A Princess of Mars. I discussed that series extensively — and also his other S&P series, the Carson of Venus books, and his Moon Maid trilogy, which is partially S&P — in Part I of this series.

But, of course, ERB wrote many other books that have no connection to S&P fiction. They are still very good stories, though, entertaining and worth discussing. I thought I’d cover some in my next series of posts.

Most  readers I know discovered ERB through the character of Tarzan. The first ERB I read was A Princess of Mars, but the second one was Tarzan Lord of the Jungle. The book was an old hardback, with no dust cover. The cover was generally brown with the title embossed on it. I found it among my sister’s books. She was the only other big reader in my family. I don’t know how she came upon it. I still remember some fifty+ years later the opening scene, with Tarzan dozing on the back of Tantor the elephant. And before long Tarzan finds a lost civilization of crusaders in deepest Africa. And there was swashbuckling.

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Spies, Cowboys, Anarchists, O My: Polostan by Neal Stephenson

Spies, Cowboys, Anarchists, O My: Polostan by Neal Stephenson

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  Polostan (William Morrow, October 15, 2024). Cover art uncredited

If, like me, you are a Neal Stephenson fan, you know he has a tendency to get deep into the descriptive weeds. I sometimes imagine his editor suggesting, “Neal, do we really need all this detail?” And then Neal grouchily responds, “If I didn’t think the story needed it, I wouldn’t have written it.”

Case in point from his latest novel, Polostan, a depiction of the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair Century of Progress exhibition where the protagonist, Dawn Rae Bjornberg, also known as Aurora Maximovna Artemyeva, works shilling for a shoe salesman:

She went to the fair early and stayed late, for the work was easy and there were plenty of diversions — that being the point of a fair.  Her perambulations soon made her as conversant with the place as if it were an old city…As they were meant to, [the exhibits] drew visitors: 600 Norge salesmen on the B&O from Philly; 176 newsboys on the New York Central from Buffalo; 60 Episcopal bishops; 180 Civilian Conservation Corps workers en route to turpentine camps in the southeast; 100 Minnesota National Guard troops. Paramount Studios executives from Hollywood, Lions from St. Louis, Shriners from Fort Smith…

It goes on like this for quite a while.  Do we really need to know that “Five hundred employees of the National Carbon Coated Paper Company of Sturgis, Michigan, arrived on the same train as 270 members of the Jewish Socialist Verband from New York City.” Probably not; it doesn’t further the plot, though it does provide a sort of Proustian vibe.

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Ten Things I Think I Think: January 2025

Ten Things I Think I Think: January 2025

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It’s been a whole month since I randomly shared my opinions on things I think. How in the world have you made it through the start of this new year, without that????

So, I think that:

1) THE LORD OF A SHATTERED LAND IS TERRIFIC

If you follow me on Facebook – or even read my column here every Monday – you know I’ve been talking about my Black Gate buddy Howard Andrew Jones, who passed away earlier this month. Click on over to see what I had to say last week about a really great guy.

I had not yet read Howard’s most recent trilogy, the Chronicles of Hanuvar. Howard’s Arabian fantasy mystery short stories featuring Dabir and Asim have been my favorites of his work (even more so than the two novels featuring the duo).

But man – this first book in the trilogy is his best work. Incorporating several short stories previously published, it’s very episodic in nature, which I liked. They’re linked together, making up Hanuvar’s ongoing quest, and the format keeps things moving. There’s no padding here.

While I have sword of sorcery from folks like Robert E. Howard and Fritz Lieber on my shelves, I’m more an epic fantasy fan, ala J.R.R. Tolkien, Terry Brooks, David Eddings, and Robert Jordan. I feel like Howard’s trilogy is epic sword and sorcery – a hybrid of the two which would also include Glen Cook’s The Black Company. It contains the individual adventuring aspect of sword and sorcery (stakes are more focused on the hero, not nations or empires), with the epic story scope of high fantasy. Howard’s trilogy is Epic Sword and Sorcery.

I finished Lord of a Shattered Land, put it on the shelf, and immediately sat down and began The City of Marble and Blood. And boy, does something big happen by page twenty-five!! The latter two books are in traditional novel form. So be it – I’m in.

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An Eternal Champion’s Legacy: 64 Years After his Debut, Fantasy’s Original Edgelord Still Reigns Supreme

An Eternal Champion’s Legacy: 64 Years After his Debut, Fantasy’s Original Edgelord Still Reigns Supreme

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Paperback editions of the first six Elric books (DAW Books, 1972 – 1977). Covers by Michael Whelan

It may not seem like it, but this winter has given fans of fantasy plenty to celebrate. Less than a month ago, Michael Moorcock turned 84, his most recent Elric novel turned three, and the latest reprint of his vaunted Eternal Champion series hit store shelves in the US. Thanks to a boatload of new collections, there is no better time to be a fan of the pale emperor. Or, for that matter, to look into his legacy.

Suffice to say that Moorcock’s legendary career has been full of incredible characters. His influence can be seen among the finest rogues of the Sword Coast and in tales spun in the far-flung wine sinks of Essos. Nowhere is that more noticeable than with his most famous creation, Elric of Melnibone. When his early stories made their way into the hands readers in the 60s and 70s, the impact would prove seismic. Today those same readers are academics, authors, and gamers happy to see Elric influence another generation.

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The Fiction of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Part I: Sword and Planet

The Fiction of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Part I: Sword and Planet

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Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Barsoom novels: A Princess of Mars, The Gods of Mars and The Warlord of Mars, and Thuvia, Maid of Mars and The Chessmen of Mars (Science Fiction Books Club, July 1970, January 1971, and January 1973). Covers by Frank Frazetta

For sheer fun and adventure there’s nothing better in my opinion than Sword & Planet fiction (also called Interplanetary Adventure, Interplanetary Romance, or Planetary Romance). But exactly what is Sword & Planet fiction? Well, Edgar Rice Burroughs (ERB) created the prototype in 1911 with A Princess of Mars, which featured an Earthman named John Carter who is mysteriously transported to Mars, called Barsoom by its inhabitants.

The basic Sword & Planet story involves an earthman (rarely an earthwoman up to this point in time; 2025) on a strange world where he must use his wits, his muscles, and his sword against a host of human and nonhuman foes. The hero is generally chivalrous and the setting is an exotic alien world, often with multiple suns or multiple moons, populated by a variety of strange plants, animals, and intelligent beings. Magic is virtually non-existent, but there may be elements of “super-science,” such as open-decked flying ships or even ray-guns, although the latter take second billing to the blade. The emphasis is on swashbuckling sword fights, wild escapes, and desperate rescues.

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