Dr Hermes Reviews - TARZAN Back to our Contents Page

TARZAN AND THE GOLDEN LION (May 10, 2003) From 1923, where it first appeared as a seven-part serial in ARGOSY ALL-STORY WEEKLY beginning in December 1922, this is one of the books from (in my opinion) Tarzan`s best period. From roughly TARZAN AND THE JEWELS OF OPAR to TARZAN AND THE ANT MEN, Burroughs had developed his writing style into something clear and flexible, while keeping the dignified formality of his earliest work. His concept of Tarzan as a complex man with a fully realized supporting cast was in full use, things which would be sorely missed in the second half of the series. And he had not yet become as bitter and filled with dislike of humanity in this period as he later showed. TARZAN AND THE GOLDEN LION neatly juggles several different plot threads and ties them together (with perhaps a heavy glue of coincidence) into a very entertaining book. There is the introduction of Jad-Bal-Ja, the golden lion himself, but as imposing a presence as he is, he`s not the main focus of the book. For the most part, the story follows a trip by Tarzan back to Opar for some boodle and then to the nearby odd civilization of the Palace of Diamonds. Meanwhile, a vile crew of assorted rogues are also headed for Opar to snatch some of that treasure, among them the Greystoke`s former maid and a Spaniard named Esteban Miranda, who looks so much like Tarzan that he fools even Muviro and the Waziri in daylight. (What are the odds of that, eh?) There are many fascinating details in this book which remind us that, in his prime,. Edgar Rice Burroughs had a wild imagination and a gift of presenting his creations vividly. Opar remains his best conceived and developed lost city, but he introduces something here nearly as intriguing. Not far from Opar and related to it is a vast castle literally studded with diamonds set in gold. Instead of the gnarled Neanderthalish Oparians, though, it`s inhabited by a race of speaking gorillas, who wear jewelry and girdled loinclothes and keep a brutish clan of natives as downtrodden slaves. There`s a tangled genetic mess here, all right. The goons of Opar have interbred with apes enough that they not only look pretty darn simian, they can speak the ape language and even understand the nagging of Manu the monkey. In contrast, the Bolgani look just like rather large and unsavory gorillas but they walk upright without leaning on their knuckles and they have human level intelligence. Perhaps they were originally elevated by the ancient Atlantean founders of the colony to serve as guards and laborers. (Is it just barely possible that Michael Crichton had read this book before writing CONGO?) One thing I like about this book is that Tarzan is genuinely heroic in the chivalrous sense. In the later books, he became indifferent to human suffering and lost himself in an indolent daydream unless hungry or attacked. But in this middle period, he has claimed a large territory as his personal domain and he enforces the peace in it with vigor. Slavery, torture, cannibalism... all are forbidden in Tarzan`s turf and you`d better not let him catch you at it or even entering his domain without permission. Here he immediately is offended at the brutal mistreatment of the black slaves by the Bolgani and he resolves to free the humans and establish justice in this area. Tarzan`s supporting cast is also very welcome in these middle period books. Jane is brave, admirable and as heroic in her own right as her husband. Their son Korak is not seen that much and wife Meriem is oddly absent, but then young Jack Clayton had enjoyed a dramatic role in the previous book, TARZAN THE TERRIBLE. And the Waziri tribesmen are repeatedly described as the bravest and most competent warriors in Africa, if a bit bloodthirsty and eager for a fight. They are "clean-cut, powerful men, with intelligent faces and well molded features.." Their loyalty to Tarzan and Jane might seem a bit overdone to touch modern sensibilities, but after all the Apeman was their chief and blood brother and it would be a wise fighter who accepted Tarzan as a leader. My delicate sweetie La also appears, still hopelessly lusting for Tarzan, exiling herself to save him from sacrifice and still strutting about nearly naked; she doesn`t seem quite as murderous or memorable as in her other appearances, though. As for Jad-Bal-Ja himself, well what can I say? He`s an impressive character on the stage. Rescued as a cub and raised painstakingly by Tarzan himself, the golden lion grows into a huge blackmaned beauty. Probably only Tarzan could have trained a lion to follow spoken commands, to fetch and heel. Wnat rings most true is that, however well trained he is, Jad-Bal-Ja always stays more than a bit unruly and unpredictable and even Tarzan has trouble reining him in against his natural impulses. He certainly gets a workout too, plowing his way through a full scale battle and leaving raw piles of chewed Bolgani all over the place. This era has my favorite characterization of Tarzan himself. He has enough sophistication to tease Jane that perhaps his father was in fact an ape ("...you know Kala always insisted that he was"), and there are referennce to his sitting in the House of Lords and enjoying a late cup of coffee "upon his return from the theatre or a ball." This is the same man who is enthusiastic about dropping from a tree to kill an antelope with his knife and, in this story, hoisting a full grown gorilla to his shoulders and carrying the carcass around with him. It`s the duality of Tarzan that makes him unique. Although he might prefer to lived naked in the trees and eat raw meat all the time, his genuine love for Jane has led him to develop a huge plantation and ranch, with a comfortable bungalow for a home. I don`t think this is entirely for Jane`s sake, either. Tarzan always has to be the alpha male, the Big Bwana, chief of his tribe whether ape or Waziri. He supervises his estate carefully and also enforces his self-imposed rule on the territory around him. For all of his (and the author`s) sermons against civilization, Tarzan seems determined to bring basic law and order even to tribes which don`t affect him directly. Within three or four books later, the Apeman would essentially forget his family and responsibilities and escape to a simpler childhood`s fantasy of no schedule and no decisions to make. He was less interesting as the wandering solitary savage, with only Nkima and occasionally his pet lion, than he was as the literal Lord of the Jungle.

TARZAN AND THE ANT MEN (Oct 14, 2002) From the February and March 1924 issues of ALL STORY (where it was serialized before being published in hardcover), this is a pretty wild adventure with strong elements of satire. People who have only a passing knowledge of Tarzan may think the books are a simple series of fights with wild animals and African tribes, but this book in particular shows a vivid imagination with a good use of extrapolated detail that makes the improbable events more convincing. Along with the three previous books, this is the phase of Burroughs` career where I like his prose best. It`s still eloquent and expressive, but not as overly wordy as the earliest books and not the sparse, brittle tone of the rest of the series. The major part of this story is fine, a classic example of pulp adventure, but the two lengthy subplots are a bit too much added weight and lessen the impact. First, there`s the misadventures of Esteban Miranda, the crazy Spaniard who looks exactly like Tarzan and who comes to be believe he IS Tarzan (carrying method acting a bit too far). We first met Miranda in the previous book, TARZAN AND THE GOLDEN LION, and here he`s still a prisoner of a cannibal tribe which is unsure what to do with him. Miranda`s usefulness in this book seems to be that (by showing up amnesiac at the Greystoke plantation and leading even Korak and Jane to mistake him for the Apeman), he provides a bit of suspense at the thought that family might be fooled and Jane might, well, carry out her wifely duties. Also, when Tarzan himself turns up at the cannibal village, the natives think he`s the rather ineffectual Miranda and get quite a surprise when they try to capture him. The comic aspect of this falls flat, and might better have been developed as a humorous short story, with mistaken identity and slapstick. Here it just seems like paddding. Then there`s the lengthy interludes with the Alulus, a strange society where the men are meek little wimps who hide in the forest from the hulking, muscular women. This whole concept, which could have been interesting, is handled so clumsily that it gets the book off to a false start which probably discouraged many readers from continuing. Just the idea that these people are so primitive that they don`t have a spoken language, only simple gestures, is impossible to believe in a series where the Great Apes carry on conversations with human beings. Apparently this is Burrough`s reflection on what giving women the vote will lead to, and it rings false from beginning to end. To be fair, there is a huge amount of fiction aimed for a female audience which features matriarchal societies full of kind, loving, noble near saintly women, while the men are all brutal hopeless thugs. From Wonder Woman to CLAN OF THE CARE BEAR (err, CAVE BEAR) to all those 600 page fantasy paperbacks by authors like Robert Jordan, they present a viewpoint just as skewed to their audiences. So it`s not like Burroughs is unique in this. But the bulk of the story, and the best part, is the Apeman`s encounter with the Minuians, the Ant Men of the title. These are eighteen inch tall Caucasians with an elaborate warlike society, the original "pygmies" of myth and legend, not the tribes of short African natives now associated with the name. The Minunians are a terrific creation, their cities of hundred feet high stone "ant hills" are described in great detail, and the working of their class-conscious society is explored. Just a few inches shorter than the smallest recorded midgets, the Minunians are not so tiny as to be completely unbelievable (as if, say, they were six inches high). And there is nothing cute or elfin about them. They are heroic warriors with a strong code of honor, riding small antelope into battle, and Tarzan (and the reader) takes an immediate liking to them). Any resemblance to GULLIVER`S TRAVELS is superficial beyond the basic premise of a normal man interacting with warring cities of tiny humans, Captured by Minunians of an enemy anthill in a vivid scene, Tarzan is (surprisingly enough) shrunk down to their size by scientific doubletalk and taken as a slave. Adding more tension is the nagging knowledge that at some point he will abruptly regain his normal size... not an appealing thought if it happens while he`s in a small stone room. Making the best of things, Tarzan has a grand old time among the Minunians, befriending the Prince Komodoflorensal who was captured with him. When he inevitably makes his near hopeless escape attempt, the Apeman is determined to also bring with them a slave girl who had been kind to them (anything to make it more difficult). In a startling moment, Tarzan discovers that he has retained most of his normal strength and is now capable of bending thick steel bars and leaping effortlessly several times his own length. (Remind anyone of a certain Virginian on Barsoom?) Unfortunately not much is made of his new superhuman powers, and I wish Burroughs had cut back on the anti-feminist Alalus premise to instead show some spectacular scenes of Tarzan leaping over the charging army, strangling a wildcat as big proportionately as a lion, or fighting with a club as large as his body. As it is, our hero is normally so overwheming that he hardly seems any different here. But underneath the classic pulp adventure is a large dose of Burroughs` social criticism, as we find the Minunians are suffering through their own Prohibition, and that the king has been taxing wealthy people so heavily that they have to work harder than ever just to stay afloat (evidently being rich and famous was not all Burroughs thought it would be. "...those who work hard and accumulate property have only their labor for their effort, since the government takes all from them in taxes.") As satire goes, it`s pretty blatant but not really overbearing, and it provides an interesting counterpoint to the bitter remarks in GULLIVER`S TRAVELS.

TARZAN, LORD OF THE JUNGLE (Dec 23, 2004) Here's a pleasant surprise, a middle-period Tarzan yarn with all the enthusiasm, imaginative detail and vivid writing of the best early entries in the series. It seems clear that Burroughs admired the ideals of medieval chivalry, and that the glamourized WHITE COMPANY-style dialogue and ethics appealed to him strongly. He really did some research here, and it shows. The result is a very enjoyable adventure story, kind of like TARZAN MEETS IVANHOE, with few of the sour sermons about the evils of humanity that make the second half of the series rather dodgy reading. (In fact, Burroughs seems to get the mandatory speeches about those vile and awful human beings over with in the first few pages. TARZAN, LORD OF THE JUNGLE has more genuinely noble and likeable characters in its cast than in most of the series.) The previous book, TARZAN AND THE ANT MEN would be the last time Korak and Meriem would make an appearance and the last showing of Jane for quite a few years. This is the beginning of the era of the solitary nomadic Tarzan, not having any ties other than the monkey Nkima, the golden lion Jad-Bal-Ja and the heroic Waziri... all of whom can get along fine without his protection, leaving him essentially without personal obligations. TARZAN, LORD OF THE JUNGLE first appeared in serial form in THE BLUE BOOK MAGAZINE, beginning with the December 1927 issue and coming out in book form the next year. It uses the reliable set-up of two lost cities of white people, perpetually at war with each other deep in the unexplored areas of Africa. (This particular cow would be milked a few times too many.) This time, we're dealing with Nimmr, "the Leopard City", populated by descendants of survivors of a party on its way to the Third Crusade. As seems to be the rule in Burroughs' universe, they have not made any scientific or cultural progress at all in the seven hundred years since their founding and still are in full knighthood mode. Stuck in a valley near the southern border of Abyssinia (modern Ethiopia), the settlers have divided up into the City of the Sepulchre and the City of Nimmr (one faction thinks the Crusade is over and the other wants to push on to the Holy Land) They exist in an uneasy cold war status enlivened by an annual tournament where the winning city gets five luscious young babes to take home and marry off (thus keeping the gene pool from becoming completely stagnant). Tarzan himself is not present all that much in this book, showing up for dramatic rescues and exposition. The lead hero on stage most of the time is a young American photographer named James Hunter Blake. He's good-natured and brave enough to carry an adventure story by himself; his accomplished skills at fencing and polo come in very useful in Nimmr. (Of course, he's also no fool and is prudent enough to keep his revolver at hand without explaining what it is for.) Blake finds himself in the Leopard City, fits right in and has a grand old time. It's interesting that, even before he tumbles for a princess, he doesn't show any inclination to start planning an escape back to his homeland. This life of swordfights and feasting suits him fine. (Of course, he IS at the top of the social pyramid; if he had ended up a miserable serf digging in the mud and sleeping in a damp hut, he might have had thoughts about moving on.) Blake has a sense of humour and tells the astonished Nimmrans (Nimmrites? Nimmroids?) that the world outside has become filled with knights.. "You see, things have changed a lot since the days of Richard... we have Knights Templar and Knights of Pythias and Knights of Columbus and Knights of Labor and a lot more I can't recall." He also impresses the heck of them by informing them his father is a 32nd Degree Mason. It's worth noting that Burroughs usually got in a few digs at the corruption of organized religion, considering all the phony high priests he used as villains. Here, although there is a lot of religious imagery and many references to Our Lord, there's not a tiny remark anywhere about hypocrisy or falsity. Maybe Burroughs figured that would be sure to either get the story rejected again or else suffer heavy blue-pencil obliterations (this was 1927, remember). As it stands, the Christian references are so appropriate to the characters that they seem natural and unforced. There's even a striking moment when the Apeman leaves the unusually nubile princess by the huge stone cross marking the road to Nimmr and goes back to rescue someone or other. Burroughs writes, "Down from the Cross went Tarzan...", a nice little allusion to sneak in past the editor.   Burroughs always keeps a few plotlines running parallel to each other, cutting back and forth between them at suspenseful moments and then bringing them all together at the end in a neat pretty bow which Tarzan himself usually ties. Interestingly, the author sets up one of his inevitable romantic subplots (which always suffer misunderstandings and setbacks) between two Bedouins, Zeyd and Ateja. Except a chapter or two in THE RETURN OF TARZAN where he befriends a shiek in Algeria, I don't recall him presenting sympathetic Arabs before, usually showing them as demonic slavers who would fit right into a mid-1980s Chuck Norris movie. Zeyd and Ateja are a pair of nice enough youngsters who have to overcome a lot of obstacles and suffering to get together. Even Tarzan befriends and helps them. Some villainy is necessary for an action story, of course, and part of it supplied by an arrogant hunter named Stimbol, who parts ways with Blake early on and then just proceeds to keep causing trouble wherever he is. Most of the menace though comes from the Bedouin slavers and raiders led by ibn Jad, who discover the valley where Nimmr lies and attack it (with firearms giving them quite an unfair advantage). Burroughs doesn't emphasize the irony, but I thought it was pretty funny in a dark way that these Crusaders have convinced themselves they are surrounded by a overwhelmingly vast army of Saracens, until Blake tells them, "Naw, there's no Saracens out there," and then they are in fact invaded by gunshooting Arabs. Just what they feared, in a strange way. The book has some unexpected plot twists. I certainly thought the big finale would likely involve a clash of knights on horseback between the forces of the two cities, with Tarzan and Blake leading the charge. There is a lovingly detailed account of a tournament where Blake wins honors (and his merciful treatment of a downed foe pays off later when he most needs it, a nice moralistic touch Burroughs often included). But although Tarzan introduces himself not only as an Englishman but a peer of the realm, he is only in armor long enough to perform an impressive feat. He THROWS the heavy lance like a spear to slam right through his opponent's shield, armor and chest. ("It was not Viscount Greystoke who faced the knight of the Sepulchre; it was not the king of the great apes. It was the chief of the Waziri, and no other arm in the world could cast a war spear as could his.") After that, though, the Apeman shucks off the heavy mail and weapons like they were one of Jane's chiffon gowns he got caught trying on and he's back to his usual style. The story goes on to include the normal amount of tangling with gorillas and lions and leopards that no Tarzan book would quite be whole without. (Talk about the jungle animals being afraid of thundersticks, no lion with any sense will hang around when he sees a naked bronzed giant with a knife nearby!) Blake gets to perform some more heroics, Zeyt and Ateja and Stimbol return to get tangled in the general running back and forth. Even a war party of the Waziri warriors a hundred strong accompanied by Jad-Bal-Ja himself make the long trek to arrive for the conclusion, although they needn't really have bothered. All in all, it's quite a party. I've only found one or two Tarzan books that really had no merit to them; even the weaker ones usually have a few exciting scenes or interesting ideas, and TARZAN, LORD OF THE JUNGLE is a fun read.

TARZAN AND THE LOST EMPIRE (Oct 26, 2003)                           From BLUE BOOK, where it was published in five parts from October 1928 to February 1929, this is pretty good stuff. The book has the same basic premise as the one before it, TARZAN LORD OF THE JUNGLE (two eternally warring cities of white people deep inside Africa, Tarzan getting tangling up in local politics, a struggling romance between a local couple), but Edgar Rice Burroughs tells his tale with such energy, attention to detail and broad characterization, that it`s a lot of fun. The action n the gladiator scenes is brisk and bloody, the melodrama of the scheming conspirators works well, and there`s even some humour that`s not overdone as one villain tries to impress the ingenue with an unsuccessful dive into the public baths.                   I don`t think much of Burroughs` theory that crime is entirely hereditary and that if you simply kill all criminals and their families (!?), there won`t be any more lawbreakers. Good thing he didn`t have a brother convicted of manslaughter, he`d come up with a new philosophy in a hurry.                 This is a sort of transitional book in the series. My favorite group of stories start around TARZAN THE UNTAMED and end around TARZAN AND THE ANT MEN. The Apeman as portrayed there is a complicated mixture of wild beast and English lord, he has a supporting cast and family he loves, and there is enough action and surprises in each book to make them enjoyable even if you had never heard of Tarzan. By TARZAN AND THE LOST EMPIRE, our hero is starting to drift down into a simpler characterization. He still patrols his territory with the fighting Waziri and his friend Muviro, there is a reference to his bungalow home and estates... but his wife and son (and grandson) are not even mentioned in a passing thought. Some sort of marital difficulties there, Lord Greystoke?                 After TARZAN AT THE EARTH`S CORE, the Apeman seems to decisively abandon his family and estates to wander carefree through the jungle with only his chums Jad-Bal-Ja and Nkima (who don`t place any responsibilities on him). He also seems much more sour and unpleasant in the later stories, with ongoing sermons about how awful the human race is. In this book, though, Tarzan still likes people enough to have friends he is glad to see, to go on a dangerous quest to rescue Erich von Harben, a young man he doesn`t know, and he is perfectly happy to stay with a family in the Lost Empire for weeks while learning the language and history. His strong curiosity is one of the things I llike best about the early Tarzan; he is always asking questions and snooping around for its own sake. We find that he went to the trouble on his own to learn how to read Latin and has read Virgil and Caesar`s Commnentaries. Pretty impressive, considering no one was making him do it.           Yet the British peer who sat up at night in his srtudy with dictionaries and reference books about Roman history is the same man who kills yet another full-grown lion with only a knife. "The savage personal combat, the blood, the contact with the mighty body of the carnivore, had stripped from him the last vestige of the thin veneer of civilization. It was no English lord who stood there with one foot upon his kill and through narrowed lids glared about him at the roaring populace. It was no man, but a wild beast, that raised its head and voiced the savage victory cry of the bull ape, a cry that stilled the multitude and froze its blood."       There`s that dual nature that makes Tarzan so interesting. He`s not a literal split personality; the wild beast side is much stronger and more the "real" Tarzan, but the sophisticated aristocrat who sat in the House of Lords and enjoyed Parisan art galleries and museums is not just an empty pose either.           Oddly, there`s some talk at the beginning of the mysterious city as being a survival of the fabled lost tribes of Biblical history but this is quickly dropped. Instead, we`re dealing here with the surviving outpost of a Roman incursion into Africa, still keeping its society and customs amost completely unchanged after a thousand years with only slight influences from the native cultures (prettty darn unlikely, if you ask me). They still think there`s a Caesar ruling in Rome, they still have senators and patricians and all that. In effect, this is Tarzan dropping into a gladiator movie for an adventure. (Of COURSE, he ends up fighting in the Colisseum, it`s mandatory for an action hero to have at least on a Coliseeum scene in his career.) Long ago, a civil war resulted in a breakaway faction founding its own city, and now there is ongoing feuding between Castrum Mare and Castrum Sanguinarus.     The pair of enemy outposts is part of the successful formula but it seriously weakens this particular story. There`s really no reason why Erich von Harben couldn`t be trapped in the same city as Tarzan without running into him, and the hopping back and forth between two very similar settings (complete with two pairs of struggling young lovers) is a bit confusing. Also, the exciting climax (which is vividly presented) with the oppressed populace marching in a bloody uprising, grim legionnaires slaughtering crowds, half a dozen of Tarzan`s great apes as a hairy commando squad (despite "their disposition to attack friend as well as foe"), the heroic Waziri doing their calvary charge... whew. All that big finale is diffused by having to then go back to the other city and see how von Harben is doing with his own lesser troubles.           TARZAN AND THE LOST EMPIRE introduces Nkima, the little monkey who takes on the traditional sidekick role for the remainder of the series. (Does Tarzan ever mention that he, like the rest of the great apes, used to eat tailed monkeys when they could catch them? Might dampen the friendship.) I like Nkima, he`s as much of a troublemaker as he is a help but he saves the day enough times to make his simpleminded chatter forgiveable. Every hero can use a bumbling pal to help with the plotting now and then. It`s interesting that except for Jad-Bal-Ja and NKima (and good ol` Tantor when they run into each other), Tarzan isn`t really friends with the wild animals. Despite his speeches about how admirable and noble the beasts are, he pretty much ignores them until he`s hungry.

TARZAN AT THE EARTH`S CORE (Dec 20, 2002) From 1930 (it was serialized in BLUE BOOK from September 1929 to March 1930), this is a crossover between two of the series which Edgar Rice Burroughs had running. It has some surprises, some nice bits of characterization and brisk action, and would be a good choice for someone new to Burroughs to sample his style. Basically, Tarzan leads an expedition to Pellucidar, the prehistoric world inside our hollow Earth, in an attempt to rescue its Emperor, David Innes. A secondary hero named Jason Gridley has been picking up radio messages from Innes, and learning of his predicament, decides to go to the one man who could hope to invade Pellucidar with success. Tarzan accepts the challenge out of curiosity and helps fund the construction of a new dirigible, the 0-220. With a German crew and a commando squad of his Waziri tribesmen, Tarzan and Gridley fly through the huge opening near the North Pole into the lost world that lies on the inner surface of our planet. (There is a stunning scene as the big airship descends over the rim of the opening and, just as the midnight sun is lost to view, they first see the inner sun of Pellucidar. This moment really captures a sense of wonder.) Now there is absolutely no point in going into the unlikely physics of Pellucidar, with its miniature sun that hangs motionless at the center of the Earth. This is fantasy from 1930, with just enough scientific trappings to give it some credence, and you just have to crank up your imagination a few notches and go with it. It`s like Captain Future`s solar system, where every planet in habitable; just relax and enjoy the ride. Pellucidar is immense, filled with jungles and mountains and seas, packed to overcrowding with not only dinosaurs and prehistoric megafauna but also new life forms that Burroughs invented, as well as an assortment of various human tribes. Since it`s always noon under that unmoving miniature sun, there is no way to tell direction (even Tarzan gets hopelessly lost, something new and humbling for him). Almost as soon as they arrive, the rescue party scatters and spends most of the book wandering around in complete confusion, being chased by monsters and savages, in general having a terrible time but keeping the reader entertained, until they all luckily stumble back across each other when it`s time to end the story. Tarzan does not enjoy the new surroundings as much as you might expect, being unfamiliar with the wildlife and not really have a chance to wander about as he might like to. He never returns there in later books, which might have been more interesting than the various lost cities of descendants of different ancient cultures. Stiil, he performs daring rescues and lives up to the hope everyone places in him to resolve things. Jason Gridley is bland but okay, a typical young Burroughs hero who is immediately smitten by the gorgeous Jana (the Red Flower of Zoram). Frankly, no matter how lovely this Jana might be, she`s a completely insufferable brat who makes Gridley suffer emotionally the entire book until she abruptly announces that she does love him in the last sentence. Burroughs introduces one of his most gruesome creations, the snakelike humanoid Horibs, who ride big lizards and love to eat human flesh. They keep their prisoners in an underground chamber, the only entrance filled with water, where they intend to fatten up the captives until it`s time to feast. This is a genuinely creepy scene (anyone remember that 1950s drive-in flick ATTACK OF THE GIANT LEECHES?) There is also a dramatic scene where hundreds of sabretooths round up and slaughter a huge mass of herbivores, including some mammoths; the big cats wipe out a enormous number of prey, far more than they can possibly eat and then start fighting with each other over the spoils. (So much for the usual preaching about Man being the only creature that kills for pleasure, and so forth.) And for hilarity, you can`t beat the scene where a multi-ton stegosaurus launches itself from a cliff, lowering its back plates to serve as glider wings, and swoops over our heroes. This is hysterical. The only way to beat this would be to have mastodons climbing trees with their trunks. Although much of the appeal of Pellucidar is that, with no seasons and no transition from day to night, the inhabitants have no sense of time, the idea doesn`t really ring true. Women would still conceive and give birth, children would grow and people would age; so there would still be a general concept of years going by. (Presumably, women would still have menstrual cycles, but maybe not.) And although sundials would not work, certainly some Pellucidarians would have devised an hourglass filled with sand, water clocks, burning ropes marked in segments, or any number of ways that would be so useful someone would come up with them. Finally, we should note that Muviro and his Waziri warriors are described by Tarzan as "highly intelligent men", capable of learning to man the controls of the dirigible. They are shown as brave, resourceful and competent, standing up to an attacking horde of Horibs and mowing the snakemen down. In contrast to these noble warriors is the American cook, Robert Jones, who is played for obvious low comedy (he throws his alarm clock overboard in exasperation at Pellucidar`s timeless nature). When he sees the impressive Waziri marching out in the wilderness, he "swelled with pride." ("Dem nigguhs is sho nuff hot babies," he says to himself.) I would love to know how Muviro and Jones would have gotten along and what they would have had to say to each other. Probably the Waziri would have felt no kinship with this American guy, but he might have wanted to befriend them and learn some of their history. It could have been a touching scene if handled with insight. And as long as we`re considering ethnic stereotypes, it`s interesting that Burroughs has the dirigible crewed by a staff of Germans, when only ten years earlier, Tarzan (and the narrator) had been filled with a righteous hatred of Germany and all its inhabitants.