My latest entry at the Black Gate group blog is up here. It was going to be a double review of REH’s Almuric and Otis Adelbert Kline’s The Swordsman of Mars, both of which I read recently in the handsome trade paperbacks from Planet Stories Library, along with some ruminations about sword-and-planet in particular and genre in general. But it got to be too long, so I’m chopping it into installments.
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Meta
Don’t know why, but as much as I love ERB, I’m meh about REH. But I’d never heard of Almuric before. May have to go read for comparison.
Well–I don’t know if Almuric is the work to make an REH fan out of anyone. Some of his staunchest advocates try to blame it on someone else. But it has its own peculiar interest.
Hey, thanks for the review! Planet Stories is still a fledgling enterprise, and needs all the help it can get.
That enormous bribe you mentioned is in the mail!
I can’t wait to hear what you have to say about Otis Adelbert Kline. The book is getting a far better reception than I frankly expected.
No problem–this series is full of incredible stuff and I feel like I should be talking more about it.
Don’t let me get in the way! 🙂
actually. . . .
While John Carter did sometimes take up the sword again, sometimes he let other heroes take the limelight. (Tarzan, now Tarzan never knew when to step back.)
Which is good, because as paper-thin as the romances are, they are even less convincing when he’s trying to tell us that his hero and heroine have been married for years and have grown children.
Re: actually. . . .
Didn’t Boy get his own book once?
Re: actually. . . .
And the Tarzan Twins as well!
Re: actually. . . .
Ah. The only one I never read. Because I couldn’t find it. Not in the Ballantine collection.
Re: actually. . . .
Jack. Believe it or not, that was fourth or fifth out of twentysome books. Get the “Son Of” out of the way early and get down to business, I guess.
–Jeff Stehman
Re: actually. . . .
I read somewhere ERB was going to make Korak the new focus of the series, but people weren’t buying so he went back to the old favorite. I forget where I saw that, exactly–maybe the Lupoff book on ERB.
Re: actually. . . .
That sounds plausible.
Of course, he managed to switch main characters for both Mars and Pellucidar, so I suspect that it may have been Korak’s fault.
Re: actually. . . .
“While John Carter did sometimes take up the sword again, sometimes he let other heroes take the limelight.”
Yes–as a matter of fact, I think my favorite one in the series is Master Mind of Mars where the hero is Ulysses Paxton. But he still recapitulates the John Carter pattern. (Except he can’t be as Jeddaky as the Jeddak of Jeddaks–no one could be.)
[edited to add context]
Re: actually. . . .
I remember laughing manically (fortunately I wasn’t sick) while reading about the second greatest swordsman on Mars (after John Carter) chasing after the second most beautiful woman on Mars (after Dejah Thoris). And wasn’t there a third-greatest/third-most one in there too?
Burroughs is primarily responsible for me writing a spoof on kidnapped princesses.
Re: actually. . . .
Couldn’t be? That’s a virtue actually.
Re: actually. . . .
Something to that. Jeddakkitude can be carried too far…
James, I’m on the tail end of being sick, and hard laughter still results in a hard cough. Since I’m not like to stop reading you, would you be so kind as to stop writing for a while?
(It’s a good thing the next Black Gate isn’t imminent. Morlock might be my death.)
–Jeff Stehman
Sorry! I know what you mean about being sick–I’m in the dregs of the worst cold I’ve had in years.