Tag: Edgar Rice Burroughs

Sailing For the Stars in 2013

On By cherylmahoneyIn Ruminations17 Comments

Merry Christmas!  I hope you are all having a wonderful holiday!

13sfexpI’m also looking ahead to January–time for the Sci Fi Experience at Stainless Steel Droppings!  This will be my second year participating, and after the great time I had last year, I’ve been very much looking forward to it.  My plan in 2012 was to read old Star Wars books, new Star Trek books, and Orson Scott Card.

That’s pretty much my plan this year too.  🙂  Plus Edgar Rice Burroughs.

I went through a Star Wars period in middle school, read a lot of books, and then stopped when I got tired of mopping up the last traces of the Empire again.  I remember some books fondly though, and I’ve revisited some of them in 2012.  For the Sci Fi Experience, I specifically want to reread the Callista Trilogy, about a Jedi from the past who gets involved with Luke.

P1020254I have three unread Star Trek books on my shelf that I picked up at a library book sale several months ago, and this looks like the perfect opportunity to read them.  I also want to reread Federation, because it’s been a long time for that one.

I also have the first three books of the Pellucidar series by Edgar Rice Burroughs sitting on my shelf.  It’s the last one of his series that I haven’t read, so I’ll definitely be diving into those–pun intended, since they center around a world at the Earth’s core!

And as to Orson Scott Card, last year I read Ender’s Game and this year I plan to read its sequel, Speaker for the Dead, and then decide if I want to pursue the rest of the series.  Ender’s War (pictured) has both of the first two books, if you’re wondering.

I’m also very excited to join in with the Dragonflight group-read.  It’s a wonderful book I’ve been meaning to reread for a long time.

vintage-sf-badgeThanks to the addition of Burroughs to my plans, I’ve decided to also jump in on the Vintage Science Fiction Month hosted by Andrea at Little Red Reviewer.  The plan there is to read science fiction from pre-1979, and since I’ve got Edgar Rice Burroughs and “Star Trek Lives”-era novels, I seem to be right on track for that one too…

So.  I think that should be enough to be getting started with! 🙂

Favorites Friday: Fantasy Worlds

On By cherylmahoneyIn Favorites Friday12 Comments

I recently read Ready Player One by Ernest Cline, about a future where most of humanity spends most of their time in a massive virtual world (stay tuned for a review!)  Made up of thousands of planets and universes, there’s a tantalizing mention that many fictional worlds have been created within the virtual universe.  Which got me thinking about which fictional universes I’d most like to visit…

Star Trek is an obvious first choice.  It’s such an idealized future, both in terms of technology and humanity’s advancement, that it would be an amazing place to live.  I’m not so sure about being a tourist there, because I don’t know precisely what I’d like to see–the universe in general is amazing, but isn’t so much big on the landmarks.  If I was just visiting, I’d be most interested if I could hang out with the known characters (by which I mostly mean Kirk, Spock and McCoy).  It’s a very much character-driven fictional universe for me, and they’re wonderful characters who also live in a really nice universe.  So either meeting them or having a whole life there sounds…well, fascinating!

I find more appealing a vacation on Pern, Anne McCaffrey’s dragon world.  I’d like to come by long enough to fly dragon-back and visit the Harper Hall for a concert.  If I managed to discover that I have musical ability, I could see living at the Harper Hall (the Harpers are, after all, the storytellers), but that’s a big if.  It would be a great place to visit, though, and then come home to my air conditioner and indoor plumbing.

I’d also like to visit Discworld, but only with a friendly native guide.  I love reading about the corrupt city of Ankh-Morpork, but I know I’d get into an enormous amount of trouble if I was actually there.  For one thing, I’m not paid up with the Thieves’ Guild!

I’d like a long trip to Diana Wynne Jones’ Time City, where residents seem to be able to get the best bits of every period of history, from the ancient world on up to 100,000 AD.  I’d just be so fascinated to find out about the whole sweep of history.  I could see myself spending a very long time in the library (or equivalent) and being perfectly happy.

On first thought I have doubts about going to any of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ worlds–I guess the significant one is Barsoom (or Mars).  It is, after all, a rather violent place.  I think I’d only want to live there if I could be a Burroughs heroine, because nothing really bad ever happens to them; and, of course, they all get brave, noble Burroughs heroes!

Much as I love Tamora Pierce’s Tortall books, I don’t think I’d much like to live there.  There’s magic, but it’s magic in a rather gritty, historical-fiction-type world and, well, see air conditioning and indoor plumbing above.  I’d love to visit long enough to meet my favorite characters, but the world itself doesn’t particularly draw me in.

There are lots of other worlds I love reading about, and lots of characters I’d love to meet (which I guess would mean visiting their worlds, but it’s not the world that counts there), but that covers at least some of my top choices for worlds to visit or take up residence in.  I know as soon as I post this I’ll think of somewhere else!

It’s funny how in some books, the setting is just the background, and in others, it’s really an integral part, as interesting as anything else.  The worlds I’m most drawn to, besides being reasonably pleasant places (for contrast, the world of The Hunger Games? Never want to go there), are also immensely detailed and elaborate worlds.  Perhaps I can imagine living there because I can believe in them as places, and because there are plenty of details to be fascinated by.

Your turn!  Where would you go if you could?

Saturday Snapshot: Book Spreads

On By cherylmahoneyIn Saturday Snapshot15 Comments

Do you ever spread your books all over the floor, to get a new look at them?  Or a possible photo opp?

Okay, maybe that’s just me.  But at various points I’ve spread out my book collections of three of my favorite authors–and they turned into interesting photos!  In ascending order by number of books…

I have 18 Tamora Pierce books – basically her entire Tortall series (except Mastiff; I’m waiting on the paperback), plus my favorite Magic Circle book.

L. M. Montgomery accounts for 46 volumes of my book collection.  There’s one book of poetry I still need, but other than that, I own, well, everything.  If she wrote it and it’s available, I have it.  I’m kind of a completist…  But you know what’s very frustrating?  I have 199 LMM short stories.  One more would make a round 200, but you can’t get another one anywhere (they exist, but they haven’t been printed).  I live in hope that someday they’ll put out a new collection.

And the biggest collection of all – 54 Edgar Rice Burroughs books.  I’ve added a few since this picture was taken.  Burroughs was extraordinarily prolific, so I still have about twenty left to collect…  Someday I’ll have them all, and then I won’t know what to do with myself in used bookstores!

What authors do you have the most books by?  And have you ever spread them across your floor for a photo…or is that just me? 😉

Check out At Home with Books for more Saturday Snapshots!

Birthdays!

On By cherylmahoneyIn Ruminations6 Comments

Today is rather exciting–not only is it Friday the Thirteenth, it’s my birthday.  🙂

I love keeping track of the birthdays of some of my favorite authors and celebrities, and celebrating if I can (which usually means reading or watching something relevant).  Since it’s my birthday, I thought I’d share about some other birthdays.

January 18: Cary Grant, 1904 – My favorite actor, January 18th is the perfect opportunity to watch Bringing Up Baby or Arsenic and Old Lace.

January 19: Michael Crawford, 1942 – The original Phantom in London and on Broadway, I have enough of his CDs to spend an entire day listening to them.

March 17: Lawrence “Titus” Oates, 1880 – Titus went to the South Pole with Captain Scott, and is a major character in The White Darkness by Geraldine McCaughrean.  He also brings many people to this blog; his name is a frequent search term in WordPress’ stats.

April 23: William Shakespeare, 1564 – I once had a Shakespeare class which met on Shakespeare’s birthday.  I brought cookies, even though I knew my professor wasn’t a Stratfordian.

June 9: Johnny Depp, 1963 – I have, erm, lots of movies on my shelf to choose from to celebrate Johnny’s birthday.

September 1: Edgar Rice Burroughs, 1875 – And I have even more books by Burroughs…

November 30: This one is interesting, because a remarkable number of my favorite people were born on this date – L. M. Montgomery (1874), Winston Churchill (also 1874!), Mark Twain (1835), William Bouguereau, my favorite painter (1825), and Mandy Patinkin (1952), who forever endeared himself to me as Inigo Montoya.  It’s rather a busy day!

Do you celebrate the birthdays of anyone from history or literature?  It’s fun–like putting extra holidays on the calendar!

Tarzan and an Unexpected Jane

On By cherylmahoneyIn Reviews8 Comments

I’ve read over 40 books by Edgar Rice Burroughs, so it’s really saying something when I say that he managed to surprise me in Tarzan’s Quest, my most recent foray into his world.

Tarzan’s Quest is the 19th book in the Tarzan series, and as you might guess, by that point (a lot earlier, actually) they were all starting to look alike.  Burroughs’ usual plotline is “girl gets kidnapped or is otherwise in distress, hero rushes to her rescue.”  The Tarzan books often like to also throw in an element of “questing through the wilderness, usually to find a lost civilization.”  To some extent, this is another book of the usual pattern.

It opens with Jane in London.  She and Tarzan are married, but currently apart–he’s off in Africa, and she’s about to fly to meet him.  She ends up traveling with friends, a delightfully flighty society woman and her nasty husband.  They’re caught in a storm and forced to make an emergency landing in the African jungle.  Meanwhile, Tarzan is out swinging through the trees with his pet monkey, Nkima, looking for a mysterious tribe who has reportedly been kidnapping girls–and who may have the secret to eternal life.

Tarzan’s story is pretty much the usual Burroughs fare.  It’s Jane’s story that surprised me–and Jane herself.  This was #19, and as far as I know Jane had dropped out of sight since #8 or thereabouts.  We only knew she was still alive because Tarzan heroically resisted the advances of all the beautiful princesses from lost civilizations who fell in love with him.  Suddenly Jane’s back, and as a very different character.  This Jane is actually capable.

Burroughs sets Jane up as a contrast to her flighty society friend, Kitty, who screams and moans and can’t handle anything at all in the jungle (and to be fair to her, it’s probably a more realistic reaction to the situation!)  Jane takes charge of her lost band, goes clambering about in trees, makes a bow and arrow out of the materials at hand, tracks prey by scent, and shoots down a leopard.  It’s all kind of amazing.

Admittedly, in some ways it’s bad storytelling because this is never how Jane was before.  She’s been lost in the jungle in previous stories and survived, but she seemed to be subsisting rather than excelling.  She’s been married to Tarzan for 18 books, but in all the previous books she’s been very much the fine Lady Greystoke, whose husband happens to have this odd thing for the jungle.  I probably should object to her sudden metamorphosis into the jungle girl–except that it’s so fun!  The Jane in this book is actually an appropriate match for Tarzan, able to embrace the jungle-side of his personality, not just the Lord Greystoke part.  Plus, it’s so hard to find a capable heroine in Burroughs that I will applaud whatever I can get.

Jane’s story also involves a quite brutal murder which is not something I expect in Burroughs.  Blood, yes, always, but the victim and the circumstances here are very different than the usual Burroughs swordplay.

The serum for prolonging life is also an interesting element here.  It’s treated fairly lightly by the characters, but seems to be Burroughs’ rather belated solution to Tarzan and Jane never aging.  They have a grown son by book 4, but then go on seeming no older than 30 for the next twenty books.  Perhaps we shouldn’t assume the books take place chronologically in the same order they were written.  Very few give any indications re: time period, and placing this one early on would certainly explain that age issue.

On the whole, it was a fun Burroughs adventure, and Jane’s character made it stand out from some of the others.  If you’re curious about it, don’t feel obliged to read the previous 18 books first.  The first five are best read in order, and after that it doesn’t much matter–and once you’ve read the first two, I think you could jump to any book from #6 on.

Other reviews:
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Not surprisingly, not many out there.  Let me know if you find another!