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tstevens3's review against another edition
adventurous
lighthearted
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.25
blchandler9000's review against another edition
4.0
It's summertime, so that means I take some time to chill with ERB.
I hadn't read this book in 30 years, so I had little in my mind when I went into it. I remembered the flying marsupial dinosaur, but that was it. (How could one forget a flying marsupial dinosaur, anyway?)
This is a wild, pulpy yarn where ERB throws his protagonist, von Horst, into one bonkers hollow earth scrape after another. The original title of the novel was "Seven Worlds to Conquer", which I think was because von Horst had seven different how-will-he-get-out-of-this-one? situations to beat. Granted, by the 6th situation, I was ready for him to be done with adventuring, but the ride there was pretty wild. Aside from the flying marsupial dinosaur, there's gobs of tribes of unfriendly cave people, stomping mammoths, a nasty juvenile T. rex, guys who are half-man/half-bison, and a feisty blond who simply will not return the protagonist's affection for reasons left unsaid until the last pages. In short, it's typical ERB.
I think the thing that made this book all the more enjoyable was von Horst's sense of humor. Tarzan can be pretty cold—his humor tends to be bone dry—and John Carter is too infatuated with Dejah Thoris to make many jokes. But von Horst spent the whole book making sarcastic quips, all of which no one in Pellucidar understood because, apparently irony hadn't been invented yet. His snark really makes the book.
On a spoilerish note: anyone want to talk about the Gorbuses? ERB usually shied away from supernatural stuff, John Carter's trips to and from Mars and Carson Napier's Hindu telepathy aside, so the Gorbuses, morlock-like people cursed with unexplained memories of being murderers, seem out of place. Are they reincarnated folks punished for their previous life's misdeeds? Is their forest some form of hell or limbo? I had trouble matching them with the "logic"* that ERB tended to write by, finally deciding that they, like John Carter, simply bounced from one world to another. My explanation will have to do for now.
*I know, flying marsupial dinosaurs in a hollow earth do not need much logic, but albinos with thoughts of past lives just didn't seem to fit.
I hadn't read this book in 30 years, so I had little in my mind when I went into it. I remembered the flying marsupial dinosaur, but that was it. (How could one forget a flying marsupial dinosaur, anyway?)
This is a wild, pulpy yarn where ERB throws his protagonist, von Horst, into one bonkers hollow earth scrape after another. The original title of the novel was "Seven Worlds to Conquer", which I think was because von Horst had seven different how-will-he-get-out-of-this-one? situations to beat. Granted, by the 6th situation, I was ready for him to be done with adventuring, but the ride there was pretty wild. Aside from the flying marsupial dinosaur, there's gobs of tribes of unfriendly cave people, stomping mammoths, a nasty juvenile T. rex, guys who are half-man/half-bison, and a feisty blond who simply will not return the protagonist's affection for reasons left unsaid until the last pages. In short, it's typical ERB.
I think the thing that made this book all the more enjoyable was von Horst's sense of humor. Tarzan can be pretty cold—his humor tends to be bone dry—and John Carter is too infatuated with Dejah Thoris to make many jokes. But von Horst spent the whole book making sarcastic quips, all of which no one in Pellucidar understood because, apparently irony hadn't been invented yet. His snark really makes the book.
On a spoilerish note: anyone want to talk about the Gorbuses? ERB usually shied away from supernatural stuff, John Carter's trips to and from Mars and Carson Napier's Hindu telepathy aside, so the Gorbuses, morlock-like people cursed with unexplained memories of being murderers, seem out of place. Are they reincarnated folks punished for their previous life's misdeeds? Is their forest some form of hell or limbo? I had trouble matching them with the "logic"* that ERB tended to write by, finally deciding that they, like John Carter, simply bounced from one world to another. My explanation will have to do for now.
*I know, flying marsupial dinosaurs in a hollow earth do not need much logic, but albinos with thoughts of past lives just didn't seem to fit.
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