The Edgar Rice Burroughs Thread

[Zendexor]

I agree that the tales were good, but written in a different age (1900s). People forget that -- it was a different time and much what we take for granted wasn't around then. The plots were similar, hero rescues girl and girl is kidnapped. However, his imagination was amazing and some of his creatures were really wild things; plant men with blood sucking hands, heads without a torso and a torso without a head -- very wacky.

The sad thing is, authors aren't allowed to write stuff as if they were living in another age. e.g. if a new ERB novel was found, it would be reprinted, but if it suddenly turned out not to have been written by ERB after all, but by someone living now, the attitude would change. In other words, rather than just react to the words on the page, people factor in their knowledge of when the story was written, and under some circumstances they will allow knowledge of that context to diminish their enjoyment.

 

[clovis-man]

I read Tarzan much later in life. I was born in Kenya so tales of Africa hold me spellbound. I loved the films and thought - if the films are good what must the books be like and I wasn't disappointed. Burroughs was very astute in some ways and his view of the apes and the other animals was fascinating. I think that's what brought the tales to life. It's a shame though that there hasn't been a film to match the book.

Lots of Tarzan films and Tarzan actors: from Elmo Lincoln to Johnny Weissmuller to Buster Crabbe to Lex Barker to Ron Ely, etc. Too many, really.

Burroughs, always glad to make a profit, worked a deal to publish his novels in comic strip form. The first was in 1929 and it seemed to mirror the tone of the books. I have them in the LOAC publication of 2015.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/1631402617/?tag=brite-21

Plenty of killing involved, both animals and humans. The villains were villainous, the animals ferocious. Interesting to read them now, especially after having grown up reading the Dell Comics versions from the 1950s, often with Lex Barker and other film Tarzans on the cover.

ERBzine 2395: Tarzan Dell Contents

By that point, Tarzan was smarter than everybody else and took care to not murder his adversaries unnecessarily. Still plenty of indications that damsels always needed rescuing and villains needed to get their comeuppance. But certainly a more "civilized" approach to portraying the "ape man". And I'm sure it was no accident that the women getting rescued were generally scantily clad. What better way to sell comics to male pre-teens.

 

[Davidjb]

There's a new Tarzan film out next year Check out the first full-length trailer for The Legend of Tarzan

Looks pretty good. The Legend of Tarzan

 

[Vince W]

There's a new Tarzan film out next year Check out the first full-length trailer for The Legend of Tarzan

Looks pretty good. The Legend of Tarzan

I would be happier if they focused on the actual story as written and less on cramming as much CGI down our throats as possible. I smell another John Carter fiasco.

 

[Davidjb]

I would be happier if they focused on the actual story as written and less on cramming as much CGI down our throats as possible. I smell another John Carter fiasco.

Aghh! Good point and hope you are wrong. Mind you a man running around with apes definitely needs some CGI. I actually liked John Carter so maybe I'm easily pleased??

 

[Vince W]

John Carter is a good film if you don't dwell on the changes. Tarzan never swung on vines. He swung from branch to branch or leapt good distances. This vine thing was introduced in the first films and no one has ever had the sense to change it. Already this film is letting me down.

 

[BAYLOR]

They're coming out with a new Tarzan movie.

 

[Zendexor]

Tarzan stands shoulder to shoulder with John Carter. The characterisation of the apes and other animals is on par with any of those on Barsoom. The apes are more like a primitive culture than wild animals. The Venus and Pellucidar books are definitely worth reading.

Tarzan and Carter are interestingly different characters; Carter extrovert and boastful, Tarzan taciturn and moody. Just goes to show that ERB's he-men aren't all cut from the same cloth.

 

[Jeffbert]

Tarzan and Carter are interestingly different characters; Carter extrovert and boastful, Tarzan taciturn and moody. Just goes to show that ERB's he-men aren't all cut from the same cloth.

I read the entire Barsoom series, the Earth's Core series, the
The Land that Time Forgot series, the Venus series, another series about the future of N. America, & just the 1st Tarzan story. What a wonderful imagination the ERB had! Tarzan actually went to the Earth's core in one of the later books in that series.

 

[Ameraka]

I think I read one of Burroughs' books a long time ago. I liked it but I pretty much forgot about it. Then I was doing a class in 2011 and they mentioned Project Gutenburg and I went on there and picked a book that looked interesting, A Princess of Mars (and I think it was one of the first alphabetically). Wow! I downloaded it on my iPad and read it offline at my grandparents' (they didn't have wifi). Then I had to read the other books in the series. I enjoyed all of them. I got the first 3 books in hardback; the rest I read online. I read some of the Venus series and the first Tarzan book. I love Burroughs but nothing has come close to the Mars series. I love science fiction and it really captured my imagination. I was really excited to see the John Carter movie in 2012. Though I liked a lot of it, I was dissatisfied with the things they changed. I liked it more the second time I watched it, probably because I was more used to the changes. I'd really love to see a sequel, or another remake...I hope there is some hope for it sometime in the future.

 

[BAYLOR]

I think I read one of Burroughs' books a long time ago. I liked it but I pretty much forgot about it. Then I was doing a class in 2011 and they mentioned Project Gutenburg and I went on there and picked a book that looked interesting, A Princess of Mars (and I think it was one of the first alphabetically). Wow! I downloaded it on my iPad and read it offline at my grandparents' (they didn't have wifi). Then I had to read the other books in the series. I enjoyed all of them. I got the first 3 books in hardback; the rest I read online. I read some of the Venus series and the first Tarzan book. I love Burroughs but nothing has come close to the Mars series. I love science fiction and it really captured my imagination. I was really excited to see the John Carter movie in 2012. Though I liked a lot of it, I was dissatisfied with the things they changed. I liked it more the second time I watched it, probably because I was more used to the changes. I'd really love to see a sequel, or another remake...I hope there is some hope for it sometime in the future.

John Carter was a terrific film Disney could have had a bother franchise on it s had had they marketed property. They should have called it John Carter of Mars , that alone would have made difference right there.

 

[Jeffbert]

I would like to talk with you, Ameraka, since we both have read so much ERB.

 

[Lew Rockwell Fan]

JTarzan never swung on vines. He swung from branch to branch or leapt good distances. This vine thing was introduced in the first films . . .

Correct in essence, but technically wrong. The Tarzan series went radically down hill after, I dunno, the first dozen or so and in one of the later Tarzans, set during WW II I believe, ERB copied the movies and actually had Tarzan swing on a vine. Sure surprised me. Wasn't in Africa. I want to say Borneo. Maybe Burma. It had a horribly overdone ignorant GI from the Bronx in it. It was almost painful.

I don't blame ERB a bit for continuing to crank out the Tarzans after her ran out of good ideas. The money was fantastic and obviously some people must have liked them enough to continue to buy them. So, a fair deal.

 

[BAYLOR]

Then there was Tarzan at The Earths Core A crossover with Pellucidar series. Wasn't a bad book.

Some years back, they did a comic book in which Tarzan met the Predators at the Earths's Core .

 

[2DaveWixon]

I think he's traditionally an SF writer but he's really more fantasy. My first exposure to him was in the third grade when a teacher (one of my two or three favorite teachers) read Tarzan to us for about a chapter a day. That remained a kind of singular experience until I came across a trove of my uncle's paperbacks (kind of weird in that he's not interested in SFF at all but apparently went through a Burroughs phase), which I read in a concentrated period when I was a kid. Oddly, he didn't have any of the Mars books so that's been a glaring hole in my reading for a long time and, even now, I've only read the first though the others are in the Pile. I've read many of his others, though, and loved the Pellucidar books. The Venus books and stuff like the Moon Maid/Men and the kind of Ice Age books (I forget exactly) were all fun adventures but the Pellucidar books had some kind of magic to them. I think the central sun and the idea of it being right here under our feet, impossible as it was, was just enchanting and I think Burroughs felt it, too, as they seemed extra-adventurous, somehow, and he even took Tarzan into it in Tarzan at the Earth's Core. (Is that his only crossover or am I forgetting something?)

In terms of influences, Burroughs himself was influenced by the vast ocean of pre-genre adventure fiction and weird stories. In terms of descendents, I'm reading a Leigh Brackett right now and the color and adventure and strong silent types definitely show the influence and, of course, she and Bradbury have a lot in common in terms of threads of each of their writings (Brackett having other hard-boiled detective interests and whatnot and Bradbury having other soft horror interests, etc., but the planetary romance is common.) The whole magazine of Planet Stories could have been called Edgar Rice Burroughs' Science Fiction Magazine. I think C.L. Moore was probably influenced. Heinlein obviously was, though he usually went in a completely different direction with most strands. But there's still the "honorable valorous adventure" streak even in him.

Let me add that some of Clifford D. Simak's earliest stories were clearly heavily influenced by ERB -- see, just as one example, "Mutiny on Mercury," in which the multi-limbed Martians (the villains) include an off-scene character named "Tars Kors" -- could it be more obvious?
Less obvious, perhaps, were many other of Cliff's early stories; but he liked to set them on Mars, which was generally described as a sandy but live-supporting waste with a native civilization that usually fit within the category of "barbarian" societies ruled by a priesthood... "The Voice in the Void," "Hermit of Mars..."

Dave Wixon

 

[2DaveWixon]

I've enjoyed the Barsoom novels I've read but they don't suffer too close an examination. The character's motivations are largely laughable, the plot holes enormous and the misogyny and racism exceptional. now some of that is down to the era when they were written but not all by a long way. Look closely and you realise they are pulp fiction, good pulp fiction, but pulp fiction nonetheless. As I say I enjoy them and his imagination is certainly quite extraordinary but they are often put on pedestals that I don't think they truly deserve.

Yes. All true. But for me, when I discovered them as a teen, they were magical... as the old phrase had it: "The golden age of science fiction is thirteen."
Not old enough to see the not-so-good aspects of the stories, but young enough to be enthralled by the magic of the images...''

Dave Wixon

 

[2DaveWixon]

It was pretty good and entertaining film . They caught the feel spirit of the and visuals of the books very nicely.

If Disney had marketed the film correctly , This would be a major film franchise. By rights it should have been.

I agree with you -- I think that the film did a pretty good job of capturing the feel of the book; it was the market that was not ready and was not willing to look at it with unjaundiced eyes. The critics savaged it from the start, but film critics are a low sort of human being...

Dave Wixon

 

[2DaveWixon]

The CGI action sequences (muchof the story) looked like CGI action sequences. Ho hum.

Dejah Thoris was remarkably unappealing; a typical example of today's warrior-woman stereotype. I guess lads are trained these days to find this virile, battle-hardened, heavily-tatted sword-wielder type appealing. I found it rather repulsive.

A matter of personal taste, I suppose: I found the lady quite attractive -- with dark beauty emphasized by the (no-doubt-computer-enhanced) blue glow of her eyes...

Dave Wixon

 

[Lew Rockwell Fan]

I tried reading Princess of Mars. It was entertaining for a while but I lost interest about 2/3rds of the way through.

The input file is: ERB_PrincsoMars.txt with 378888 characters.
It uses 27 SF words 119 times for an SF density of 0.314
The word count limit of: 37 was exceeded by: 32 (Mars)
It uses 11 Fant words 62 times for a Fantasy density of 0.164
. . .
psik

That looks like the output of a script. Would you mind posting it or linking to it?

 

[Lew Rockwell Fan]

More disconnected thoughts on ERB:

Several people have touched on it, but think of the time context this way:
ERB finished school in 1895. Grover Cleveland was POTUS.
He turned 21 in 1896, an adult by any measure.
1896!
He was 25 years old when the 20th century began!
Some of his best known books were published more than a century ago.

I put exclamation points because for some reason it is hard to realize how far back it was. Not too many popular writers of that generation are still in print.

Critics of his mistakes should pause a moment to take this into account.
======================
Ray Bradbury said "Burroughs is probably the most influential writer in the entire history of the world" by which he intended to yank people's chains, but he also meant it and had a darn good argument for the it. His definition of "influential" was broader that what people normally have in mind. See:
ERBzine 3734: Ray Bradbury
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One more thing that's also been touched on but too lightly - you'll find little shadows of ERB in the form of puns, in-jokes, and little allusions in the work of a lot of the major SF writers of the past 50 years. Simak, Heinlein, and Farmer have been mentioned. But it is also in a lot of Niven's books for example. Asimov mentioned ERB in some of his non-fiction.
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A trivia item: Otis Adelbert Kline ghosted one of the later Tarzans. Probably couldn't prove it in a court of law, but the evidence looked more than presumptive to me. Textual analysis was part of the argument. I don't recall where I read about it, possibly in one of the ERB fanzines, or maybe in one of the biographies. I have 2. One's a hardback and pretty good. The other is a paperback by Richard Lupoff. Meh. Maybe somebody else remembers.