For nearly half a century, Edgar Rice Burroughs' final work, an unfinished Tarzan novel, was locked in a vault where it became the stuff of legend. In 1995, Edgar Rice Burroughs' Tarzan: The Lost Adventure enjoyed its Dark Horse debut as a series of four pulp-magazine format books. Now, one year later, the story has been collected and reformatted into an illustrated prose novel, in the classic tradition of those prized Tarzan first editions. The tale -- completed by famed horror writer Joe R. Lansdale -- is wrapped in a dust jacket featuring painted art by Disney artist Dean Williams. The book is illustrated throughout by such legends as Thomas Yeates, Charles Vess, Gary Gianni, and Michael Kaluta, and includes a reproduction of Edgar Rice Burroughs' personal bookplate, designed by Burroughs' nephew, Studley O. Burroughs.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
This is the first new Tarzan novel since Tarzan and the Castaways in the 60s. It is put together from an initial couple of chapters written by ERB and developed from his notes by Joe Lansdale. You can almost tell when Lansdale takes over in fact. The first two chapters are clearly in the Burroughs style but the rest of the book fails to achieve this. It is difficult to put ones finger on the problem as it is reasonablely well written for a book of this nature but the plot-line is too outlandish and the characterisation is poor. Having said this it is resonably enjoyable and to a certain extent reminds one of the excitement of reading a Trazan book for the first time. It may be because one grows out of the genre, or perhaps because it is clearly a bot boiler, but unfortunatly it fails to meet up to expectation.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
3.0 out of 5 stars
7 reviews
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars
Good Effort, But Not Quite ERB
20 Jan 2004
By James Sadler
- Published on Amazon.com
I did not necessarily have high hopes for this book. As a pre-teen and teenager I was in love with the writing of Burroughs and Robert E. Howard, as well as their most famous characters, Tarzan and Conan, respectively. And I have had a lot of respect for the company controlling Burroughs's copyrights for not dumping a lot of Tarzan pastiches on the marketplace as has happened with Conan. But having watched hack after hack literally destroy Conan, my expectations for this book were fairly low.
Fortunately, I was somewhat surprised. While it definitely lacks Burroughs's tone in many places, it's relatively true to the original character. Lansdale appears to be a decent enough writer and I think he has a lot of respect for the Tarzan mythos. He wisely introduces one of my favorite characters into the storyline, Jad-Bal-Ja (the golden lion), but I ultimately wasn't overly impressed with what I considered the science fiction aspects of the story, e.g., the bug-like monster.
Not that Burroughs didn't frequently troll the waters of science fiction in Tarzan, it just seemed to lack a degree of originality. The downer ending was also something of an oddity. Admittedly, "Tarzan of the Apes," the one that started it all, had a downer ending, but for the most Burroughs generally wrapped up his Tarzan stories with a semblance of "everything is now right in the world." Okay, so maybe I'm being picky.
I do recommend this book. It is an entertaining read and is never boring. I guess anyone who tries to pick up where my favorite authors left off is usually going to face some negative criticism.
21 of 25 people found the following review helpful
1.0 out of 5 stars
Disappointing to one who's read everything ERB wrote!
28 Mar 1999
By David Rhind
- Published on Amazon.com
Mr. Lansdale has come up with a passable plot by copying Mr. Burroughs' most used formulae. Unfortunately, the book disappoints, even offends, in two critical areas. First, I wonder if he has ever read ERB's Tarzan stories enough to know the character. Lansdale's Tarzan alternates between taciturnity and sarcasm. By the time ERB got to "Tarzan and the Foreign Legion", Tarzan was amazingly social, able to carry on friendly conversation, given to smiling, even laughing occasionally, and had no problem with contractions. Lansdale's Tarzan ponders how he and Jane have grown apart and is unconcerned about getting home. ERB's Tarzan loved Jane deeply and she, in turn, understood his occasional need to escape into the jungle for the adventures of his boyhood. The second failing, one the introduction attempts to make excuses for, is Mr. Lansdale poor grammar and sentence structure. He writes in repetitive short sentence structure. Remember how you English teacher taught you to take: "He crossed the camp and sat on the stool. He picked up the map. Then he took a drink of coffee." and make it more interesting by changing it to: "Crossing the camp, he settled himself onto the stool. As he began to study the map, he reached for his coffee, taking a relaxing sip from it..." I think Mr. Lansdale missed that class. Dialogue is filled with a repetition of "said" and "asked". It becomes tedious. How about announced, sighed, grunted, gasped, commented, corrected, argued, inquired, added, continued, etc.? Variety holds a reader's interest better than repetition. I had high hopes that, like Fritz Leiber with "Tarzan and the Valley of Gold", it would be a well-written story, honoring the personality Mr. Burroughs created, which evolved through his 25 books (including "Tarzan and the Tarzan Twins"), as well as Mr. Burroughs' flowing style.
8 of 9 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
Just not Burroughs enough
2 Jun 1998
By Eric Chernenkoff (graphicknight@ibm.net)
- Published on Amazon.com
There's just too much of Lansdale and not enough Burroughs. In Poodle Springs by Raymond Chandler and Robert B. Parker, you can not tell where Chandler ends and Parker picks up. In finishing a lost manuscript, the author finishing should attempt to stay as true to the original authors style as possible. Lansdale failed in this area. The book is good reading and a good adventure, but just like the movies, just not Burroughs Tarzan.
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3.0 out of 5 stars
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