Tag: Edgar Rice Burroughs

“‘Lost on Venus’ Is… Lost’ (2016)

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Lost on Venus - Carson Napier Faces the Supermen and Super-Monsters of Amtor. Ace Books # 49501, Circa 1960. Frank Frazetta Cover by Edgar Rice Burroughs: Very Good Soft cover (1935) | Singularity Rare & Fine

In the 1930s, The Settled Science was “eugenics”–the art of breeding human beings like livestock until all flaws and defects were bred out of the gene pool and you had nobody left but supermen and superwomen. Anyone who questioned it was laughed out of the room.

Was Edgar Rice Burroughs, the creator of Tarzan, buying it?

‘Lost on Venus’ is… Lost

The internal evidence in his writings strongly suggests he did buy into this stuff… Except for the fact that he knowingly made the entire Venusian system of super-science to rest on a joke. The whole basis for the Venusians’ all-wise, all-right all the time science is… a joke!

So maybe ERB was having a laugh on everybody. I wouldn’t put it past him.

Waiting for Science to Raise the Dead

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The Master Mind of Mars (1969) -- Pulp Covers

[Thanks to Martin for the nooze tip]

At the Alcor Life Extension facility in Scottsdale, AZ, 199 dead “patients” are waiting–if we can speak of dead bodies as “waiting”–for new Science to come along that’ll cure the diseases that killed them and bring them back to life in healthy new bodies (https://www.jpost.com/science/article-719461).

Meanwhile, they’re still dead. Oh–and some of them are just… heads. But it costs $200,000 to have your body preserved in liquid nitrogen, but only $80,000 for your head (kind of gives a new twist to the old saying, “a noggin of rum”). If you can’t scratch up the cash, you can take out a life insurance policy and make Alcor the beneficiary.

Hey, wait a minute! Didn’t Edgar Rice Burroughs get here first–in 1927, with The Master Mind of Mars? Sure he did. In his book, rich and powerful people, dying of old age or whatever, paid out huge sums to scientific genius Ras Thavas to transplant their brains into young and healthy bodies. They weren’t too particular about whose bodies they were or how Ras Thavas obtained them. Abuses abound.

And say–what if Alcor goes bankrupt? What happens to the heads and bodies?

What if, when you’re at last brought back to life, the whole experience has resulted in there being something terribly wrong with you that no one’s ever seen before and no one know how to treat?

Imagine putting yourself to sleep in 1940 and waking up now. Whose sanity could bear up under that?

No, no, they haven’t thought this through. Fear of death has unbalanced their minds.

We have our Lord Jesus Christ, who has won eternal life for everyone who believes in Him. We still fear death, because we’re flesh and blood and we can’t help it. But we do not face it without hope. We do not face it without our Savior.

Liquid nitrogen… fooey.

‘Big Ape Politics’ (2019)

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See the source image

Everything you need to know about fallen-world politics, you can learn from reading Tarzan books.

Big Ape Politics

Go ahead, I dare you–look at Congress, look at the appointed posts, and tell me it’s not about getting rich and sassy at the public’s expense. We are fallen–but do we really have to fall this far?

Who gets to run the show? Who gets the biggest percs? Whom does everybody else have to make like they respect?

The biggest ape, of course. Until a bigger, strong ape replaces him.

Edgar Rice Burroughs, you were a top-flight political scientist… and didn’t even know it.

Lee’s Homeschool Reading List (5)

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A Princess of Mars  by Edgar Rice Burroughs

A Princess of Mars (1963) | A princess of mars, Edgar rice burroughs, John carter of mars

(12 and up)

This was Edgar Rice Burroughs’ first published book, two years ahead of Tarzan of the Apes. In it, John Carter, who is immortal, is transported to Mars.

Chock-full of adventure, action, and weird exotic settings, A Princess of Mars is remarkable, almost astonishing, for its vision of collectivism. The Green Martians are a communal culture. There’s no private property, families have been abolished, the young are raised by the state… It’s really quite horrible. That Burroughs was able to see this in 1912 is something to marvel over. The Green Martians have taken “It takes a village” to its logical end: and it’s dreadful.

Two more books in Burroughs’ Martian series deserve mention.

Edgar Rice Burroughs THE MASTER MIND OF MARS #6 1969 Bob Abbett Great Cover Art | eBay

In The Master Mind of Mars, a genius scientist gets rich and famous by transplanting old brains, belonging to the rich and powerful, into healthy young bodies. Hmm… Think that could ever happen here?

Synthetic Men Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs - AbeBooks

In Synthetic Men of Mars, the master mind, forbidden to do any more brain transplants, now has a project for growing human body parts in a culture medium. I daresay this seems more of a possibility now than it did in 1939. The project develops some deeply serious problems which no one expected. By “deeply serious” I mean catastrophic. To say nothing of the malformed pseudo-humans, called “hormads,” spontaneously generated by the culture media. They’re part of the problem.

Warning: You could very easily get hooked on these books. Serious Mainstream Literature they’re not. Great fun reads, they most surely are.

[Note: These covers go with the old Ballantine paperback editions of the 1960s, as found in my personal collection. There have been many editions and many different covers since. I just like these the best.]

 

Lee’s Homeschool Reading List (3)

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Princess and the Goblin.jpg

I think I’ll ask for this for Christmas!

Today I offer up one of my own favorite series by Edgar Rice Burroughs, and a reader recommendation for a fantasy novel by George MacDonald from 1872.

For ages 12 and under–or over

The Chessmen of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs - Paperback - First Paperback Edition - First Printing - 1963 - from Bookmarc Books (SKU: 015121)

A Princess of Mars and its sequels, by ERB–his justly famous novels of earthman John Carter’s adventures on Barsoom, the planet that we know as Mars.

These ignited my imagination as a teenager, and I still enjoy them today. My favorite is No. 5, The Chessmen of Mars, in which a barbaric nation devotes itself to a game of Martian chess played with real warriors who have to battle it out on the chessboard. This weird creation is simply fantastic; but all ten novels in the series are good.

Recommended by Heidi (I haven’t read them yet, but I can’t wait to do so, once my own book is finished), The Princess and the Goblin by George MacDonald, and other works by him–these sound like real winners. MacDonald was a huge influence on a lot of fantasy writers–and not just fantasy writers, either. G.K. Chesterton had very high praise for The Princess and the Goblin. It sounds like a work of truly unfettered imagination.

Political Science–and Tarzan

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Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs (1988, Hardcover) for sale online | eBay

Speaking of orgies of sexual harassment (https://leeduigon.com/2021/10/08/californias-state-legislature-a-tar-pit-of-sexual-harassment-2017/), and the fact that #MeToo went away when they kept finding big-name liberals chasing women into the rest rooms, I learned everything I needed to know about this aspect of politics from just two sources.

First was an account of Czar Peter the Great’s visit to London in 1698. They called it his “Grand Embassy.” The English government provided him and his entourage with a luxury townhouse, servants, and free everything.

And the czar and his entourage, who had apparently never sat on chairs before, wrecked the place. The Grand Embassy behaved like a rock band. They brought horses indoors to race them up and down the marble staircase. They strewed garbage everywhere.

Because they could. No one would dare tell them to stop.

Equally illuminating are Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Tarzan stories. In these, the biggest, strongest ape is king until another ape can kill him; and while he’s king, he gets to mate with any female he wants, he’s entitled to first choice of whatever food is going, and there’s no way to hold him accountable for anything he does. Reading these, I got to thinking, “Gee, that sure sounds familiar! Where have I see this before?”

Or rather, where have I not seen it?

That’s the politics of this world: do whatever you please for as long as you can get away with it. The Big Ape rules. That’s the politics of the City of Man.

We prefer the City of God.

‘”John Carter” Movie: Boo! Hiss! Away Wi’ Ye!’ (2012)

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Those old Bob Abbett covers were the best.

I started reading Edgar Rice Burroughs’ “John Carter” books in junior high and have enjoyed them ever since. These are glorious works of art, the best books Burroughs ever wrote. And of course I used to wonder how they might translate to a movie.

Aaaaaagh! They don’t!

‘John Carter’ Movie: Boo! Hiss! Away Wi’ Ye!

Just more proof that Disney Corp has taken the noon balloon and has nothing to offer anymore.

You may wonder what I’m doing, talking about movies on a Sunday.

Well, when the movies are this bad, someone ought to say something. It points to moral and spiritual problems elsewhere.

My Next Book

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WindHeaven

The Wind from Heaven is almost ready for publication. Typesetting is all done, and final proofreading is in progress. And after that comes Behold! That should be ready sometime next year.

Ah! But spring is almost here, which means it’s almost time to start writing another one. I’m happy to say I’ve already been given two key pieces of it–one of which has solved a major problem with the plot. There’s stuff going on in Durmurot, and in Lintum Forest, that has to be addressed.

In writing a series of any kind, the writer has to beware of repeating himself. Edgar Rice Burroughs got bogged down with Tarzan and ran off a dozen or more books featuring lost cities. People enjoyed them anyway, but sheesh! You couldn’t throw a brick in Africa without breaking a window in a lost city. I don’t want to do anything like that.

But the new stuff excites me, and I hope it excites my readers, too. Meanwhile, I’m waiting for a catchy title. Sometimes I get badly stuck for a title.

What new stuff? Well, I can’t tell you that, can I?

 

When I Discovered Fantasy…

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2 Pellucidar books by Edgar Rice Burroughs - Ace F-158 F-280 | eBay

I was 13 years old when a friend lent me his copy of Pellucidar by Edgar Rice Burroughs–adventures in the inside-out world of the hollow earth, complete with dinosaurs and monsters–and it blew me away. I had no idea there were books like this! I couldn’t get enough of them. Happily for me, ERB wrote dozens of books. I’ve still got ’em (paperback price: 35 cents!), and I still read ’em from time to time.

Burroughs introduced me to other worlds, pure fantasy, anything goes. Just like Tarzan went to Pellucidar once.

But then in high school, sophomore year, I read J.R.R. Tolkien’s masterpiece, The Lord of the Rings, and oh, brother! This took fantasy fiction a notch higher. I find it bordering on the impossible, to describe how much I enjoyed it. I spent the next ten or twelve years of my life trying to write a fantasy like Tolkien’s. What the heck, everybody else seemed to be doing it–you never saw so many unsatisfying imitations published.

I learned an awful lot about writing by reading and re-reading Burroughs and Tolkien. I also learned to give up trying to imitate them, and just write like myself: took more than a few years to learn how to do that, too. The end result is my Bell Mountain series.

I envy those of you, out there, who’ll someday discover top-flight fantasy, as I did, and just go to town on it. I know reading isn’t as fashionable as it once was. But as much as I love movies, there’s nothing better than a roaring good book. No special effects genius, no cast of actors, no director can ever quite match what that special book can do with your imagination.

Does it serve God? Does it give God the glory? I’d say that depends on what the reader does with it. Tolkien was a devout Christian, and I’m sure he hoped his books would do that. Just as I’m sure that for many readers, they did.

‘My favorite Authors’ (2011)

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Image result for images of the chessmen of mars

Note the cover price–50 cents!

I can’t believe I left Walter R. Brooks off this list. His Freddy the Pig books are among my all-time favorites. Who else would have written about celebrity spiders?

My Favorite Authors

I know, I know–none of these has ever been called Serious Mainstream Literature. You’d never catch Tolstoy writing about celebrity spiders; and Jane Austen wasn’t big on lost cities inhabited by maniacs.

But these are the authors I’ve learned from, and these are the authors whose works I love–and return to again and again.