Tanar of Pellucidar: #3

I must admit to have cut my reading teeth on Edgar Rice Burroughs and his ilk so am inclined to be a big fan. Burroughs contines his wonderful fantasy stories with the Pellucidar series and this work is one of the best. As one reviewer has already pointed out, Burroughs' observation on the human conditon can be quite acute and down right funny. As a old man, I recently reread this one (along with several others by this author) and found they have lost none of thier charm. The are "page turners" in every way and simply fun to read. Granted, some of the author's writing can indeed be a bit predictable, but somehow that is comforting for me. Recommend this one highly.

"Tanar of Pellucidar" was the third pulp fiction novel Edgar Rice Burroughs wrote in his Pellucidar series, which was his third longest after the Tarzan and Barsoom series. Burorughs wrote the story as a six-part serial in late 1928 and it was first published in "The Blue Book Magazine" from March to August of 1929. "Tanar" was written after "Tarzan and the Lost Empire," and after completing it Burroughs wrote a sequel to both works when his next novel presented his only book to be in two different series, "Tarzan at the Earth's Core." Although the title for the novel is taken from a character native to the inner world of Pellucidar, the most interesting character in Burroughs' novel is Jason Gridley, who is introduced in the prologue as a friend of the author. An orphan, Gridley has graduated from Stanford and built a lab at Tarzana (ERB's home). There he discovers the "Gridley Wave," which is the means by which Burroughs will receive his "true" stories from the Earth's core and Mars. That is the case with this story, which is sent by Abner Perry from Pellucidar, where he and David Innes have been living for fifteen years. Perry reports that Innes is being held a captive in the north of Pellucidar. Althought the Mahas and their Sagoths have been driven beyond the border of the Empire of Pellucidar, the Kingdom of Thuria in the Land of the Awful Shadow is now under attack by a savage race of men led by Goork. Tanar, son of Ghak, is who Innes sends to deal with the situation, along with 10,000 warriors armed with the "modern" firearms created by Innes and Perry. Tanar is captured by Korsar pirates who want to learn the secret of the strange weapons that control the balance of power in Pellucidar. Innes heads off to rescue Tanar, ordering that a fleet of 50 ships be built to follow him as soon as possible. Meanwhile, back on the Kosar ship Tanar and the lovely Stellara are busy ignoring each other, so the romantic interest of the novel has been established. That means that we can get on with the standard ERB adventure yarn, which is that Tanar and Stellara escape, get recaptured, get separated, so on and so forth. But ERB keeps the action moving at a brisk place and I always liked the way that the Pellucidar novels involved interjecting "modern" technology into the equation. Besides, in conquering this inner "New" world, Innes is much more beneficent than the European who arrived in this particular hemisphere. Be forewarned that the novel ends with David Innes still being held in the prison of the Cid, covered by snakes no less, so there is a cliffhanger ending.. Jason Gridley promies to help, thereby setting up the rescue effort by Tarzan in the next book. I have to admit, that given how redundant and repetitive the Tarzan books became that having Tarzan actually be in a strange new world and not just another uncharted part of the African continent was a decent little twist. Of course, Tarzan is always going to be the lord o

The third book in the Pellucidar series, 'Tanar of Pellucidar' concerns the exploits of of Tanar, and his adventures within the world lying under the "outer crust", Pellucidar. Burroughs doesn't deviate too far from his formula, nor would you want him to. Tanar is the honorable, fallible, romantically-driven hero, Stellara his love, and a whole host of bad guys interfere with them getting together. This time, they're from a place called Korsar, and look remarkably like pirates. Yup. Yo ho, yo ho pirates. Like the other books, there are set pieces aplenty, written in ERB's thrilling simple style. Jungles chases and oceanic clashes...dungeons, dinosaurs...oh it's all here as usual. This time, however, there is a bit more elegance and sophistication slipping in to his prose. First, Mr. Burroughs appears in the prologue/epilogue. The jarring anachronistic presence of the pirates is given a possible explanation, in a tantalizing fashion. He gives us enough information to put two and two together, but you still want to read more, and I think he's setting us up nicely for the subsequent novels. Which I now absolutely MUST read. One last humorous note: Some of the exotic locales, like Anoroc and Amiocap, I've just noticed to be cities in California spelled backwards...

Although Edgar Rice Burrough's style can get predictable at times, he can come up with some literary gems such as the first few Tarzan novels and (if he had just foregone the "sequals") "the Land that Time Forgot". "Tanar of Pellucidar", along with "Escape on Venus" stand out for their simple, straightforward observations (often humorous) of human nature as expressed through the practices of various societies. Even if you aren't a Burroughs fan, these two titles I recommend for any lover of good fiction.