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Last Update 12/27/25
The Gates of Doom by Rafael Sabatini, 1914
Another good but not great historical adventure story. The hero is a spy for the Jacobites who want to replace King George with James III. He is supposed to be working with a like minded aristocrat whose weakness is gambling and who is heavily in debt. Predictably, the gambler sells out to the other side, betraying his former companions including the spy. The spy is arrested, tried, and hanged, but through a clever artifice, some of his friends arrange that he will survive his execution. Since he used a false name for his nefarious activities, he proclaims himself innocent and the other man dead, then seeks revenge on the betrayer. He is thwarted because the debt collectors seize him before a duel can be arranged. 12/27/25
The Lion’s Skin by Rafael Sabatini, 1911
In early 18th Century Europe, an expatriate Frenchman is the illegitimate son of a French noble, who deserted his mother. His foster father recruits him into a plan to frame the father as a traitor and bring about his execution. It is pretty obvious from the outset that the older man is using the younger as his tool for a private vendetta, and obviously he will learn the truth at some point. He crosses paths with his half-brother, the legitimate Lord Rotherby, who is a thoroughgoing cad. He uses a fake pastor in an attempt to have a fake wedding that will allow him to take his father’s ward to bed and the older man threatens to disown him. By the end of the book, our hero has discovered that he has been lied to, becomes reconciled with his father, and thwarts Rotherby repeatedly. 12/22/25
The Trampling of the Lilies by Rafael Sabatini, 1906
This adventure/romance is set in late 18th Century France as the Revolution simmers to a boil. The protagonist was wronged by an aristocrat, nearly killed, and became a fugitive. Now he is an official of the revolutionary government and is personally responsible for arresting his tormentor and the man’s son and daughter, the latter of whom he is in love with. His conflicting emotions play out and the daughter takes advantage of his affection to manipulate him. He is eventually arrested himself, but she finds a way to intercede and save his life. Very minor Sabatini. 12/18/25
The Shame of Motley by Rafael Sabatini, 1908
One of the author’s minor novels, set in Italy during the days of the Borgias. The protagonist is from a family that lost its fortune and prestige. He has worked as a court fool but he seeks a more respected position. Then he gets involved with a fugitive woman, with whom he also falls in love. Court intrigues follow, along with a few minor swashbuckling episodes. The plot is largely episodic and other than the protagonist, none of the characters are particularly well realized. It was interesting to see Cesare Borgia portrayed in a more favorable light than usual. The novel is also quite short. 12/18/25
Mistress Wilding by Rafael Sabatini, 1910
Aka Anthony Wilding. A wealthy young woman agrees to marry a suitor in order to dissuade him from killing her despicable brother in a duel. He is secretly involved with the Monmouth rebels – an abortive effort to seize the throne of England. When Monmouth unwisely moves too soon, Wilding argues with him and finds himself now enemies to both sides of the party. Various complications arise before his wife actually falls in love with him. He has to fake his own death at the end, whereas Monmouth is arrested and eventually executed. Rather slow moving and not Sabatini at his best. 12/14/25
The Queen’s Messenger by Rafael Sabatini, Novel Books, 1909
Aka St Martin’s Summer. This is a really excellent historical adventure novel. The protagonist is sent by the queen of France to fetch a young woman who is under the guardianship of a treacherous woman who intends that the girl marry her son. She and her minions make several efforts to thwart, fool, or even kill the envoy. He is a crusty and obstinate man who has to overcome his own preference for direct action in order to penetrate the castle and emerge with the young woman. Sword fights, a jump from a tower into a moat, subterfuges, a contrived duel, and other incidents fill the fairly short novel. The envoy ends up marrying his charge. This is one of the author's best novels although it is generally considered to be comparatively minor. 12/8/25
The Wreck of the Golden Mary by Charles Dickens et al, Hesperus, 2006.
Dickens wrote a longish story about a shipwreck and then invited several writers - most of whom I had never heard of - to provide parallel stories showing what happened to some of the other survivors. The Dickens and most of the other stories are very forgettable. The exception is the final story by Wilkie Collins, which outshines the others considerably. This isn't really one of those novels in which each writer adds to the original story. They are only vaguely related in some cases. I found this by chance in a bookstore and had never heard of it before. 12/4/25
Bardelys the Magnificent by Rafael Sabatini, 1906
This early and fairly obscure Sabatini historical adventure is actually quite good. It is set during the 17th Century civil turmoil under King Louis of France. The protagonist engages in a bet that he can become the fiancé of a wealthy young heiress within three months. Things get complicated when a civil war breaks out, and when he is mistakenly assumed to be a man who is a sympathizer to the rebels when in fact he is neutral in the dispute. Captures and escapes, sword fights, betrayals, court politics, and the backdrop of a civil war. This was made into a silent movie in 1926 and would make a decent one today. 12/3/25
Turbulent Tales by Rafael Sabatini, House of Stratus, 2001
A bunch of unrelated tales from the prolific writer of historical adventures/swashbucklers. These sometimes involve historical characters like Casanova, Cagliostro, and a young Michelangelo. Several of them have significant elements of humor and even the more adventurous ones are fairly light hearted. Duelists escape the scaffold, a servant marries his master’s fiancé, avaricious men are outwitted, fugitives find refuge, alchemists duel intellectually, a man’s identity is mistaken giving rise to an assumption that he is a ghost, Napoleon deals with a thief, and another thief discovers that his bad luck will see him through to his death. Most of these are swashbuckling stories although the battle is often more one of wits than of swordplay. 12/3/25
The Tavern Knight by Rafael Sabatini, 1904
This was the author’s second novel and first adventure story, set during the English civil war. He is captured by Cromwell’s forces after King Charles’ army is defeated, makes a friend in jail, escapes, takes refuge with another sympathetic aristocrat, falls in love with the wrong woman, and has some minor adventures before finally deciding that it is impossible for him to stay in England. The story ends with him self exiling to France. The story is a bit awkward, unlike Sabatini’s more polished later work, and his protagonist is not entirely sympathetic. 11/28/25
Tarzan the Mighty by Arthur B. Reeve, Erbdom, 2005
This was a novella length adaptation of the silent movie of the same name. It was serialized in newspapers at the time to promote the film, a silent, of which no copies are known to have survived. Tarzan has to come to the assistance of some marooned Europeans who are menaced by a pirate named Black John. The pirate particularly covets a woman named Mary and wants to force her to marry him in London, but Tarzan shows up and she marries him instead. Presumably this is not canonical since Tarzan married only Jane in his lifetime. It feels like something Reve wrote in an afternoon – sparse and fast paced. 11/17/25
Tarzan and the Castaways by Edgar Rice Burroughs, 1964
This is a fixup of three novelettes published in 1939-1941. The longest story involves being marooned on an island where, inevitably, there is a lost city, this one inhabited by Mayans. There is an evil Arab slaver, a beautiful woman, a crooked businessman who deals in capturing animals for sale, a mutiny, and so on. Tarzan briefly loses his ability to speak, for no apparent reason. The second involves a boxing champion who decides to hunt with a machinegun. He and Tarzan are captured by cannibals and Tarzan teaches the man to respect animals. The last and best is a murder mystery in which Tarzan finds two crashed aircraft and has to figure out who shot at who and why. 11/14/25
Tarzan and the Foreign Legion by Edgar Rice Burroughs, 1947
This was the last Tarzan novel that Burroughs wrote, and it is also one of the most racist. World War II has broken out, so Tarzan becomes John Clayton and joins the RAF. He is on a reconnaissance mission over Sumatra when his aircraft is shot down. He has to guide the rest of the crew, plus some Dutch refugees, through the jungle, avoiding Japanese soldiers who are depicted as irredeemable villains. Tarzan even executes some wounded prisoners because they do not deserve humane treatment. Other than that, it’s a typical jungle adventure with some new animals to fight. But it’s not a very good story and Burroughs seemed to be just going through the motions. 11/14/25
Tarzan and the Madman by Edgar Rice Burroughs, 1940 (although actually not published until 1964)
The Tarzan series had devolved into self parody by this time. Once again there are two rival lost cities. For the fourth time, Tarzan has to deal with a man who is his exact double and whose crimes are being blamed on him. Once again the subsidiary characters get abducted over and over again – this time a woman captured by the double, by local natives, by cannibals, by a band of Apes, by slavers, etc. There is also a disabled plane that somehow manages to land in the jungle, intact, despite the fact that its pilot had already jumped out. It provides the escape route for two characters at the end. Laughably bad. 11/9/25
Tarzan the Magnificent by Edgar Rice Burroughs, 1939
This was by far the most racist of the Tarzan novels. Two tribes dominated by women – although they both have male chiefs – are kidnapping Europeans and forcing them into marriage because they want to turn the tribe white. Tarzan frees the men and overturns the chiefs, who use magical stones that generate hypnotic powers. Tarzan is immune, but can use it himself, and defeats an entire Zulu army by using it. One of the freed men is in love with one of the native women, but it turns out she was actually kidnapped as a child and she is not related to the tribe at all. The second half of the book returns to the City of Gold as some villains steal one of the jewels and want to use it to gain power to themselves. There are ridiculous events all through this, including Tarzan escaping by finding a secret passage that no one had ever noticed before. 11/4/25
Tarzan and the Forbidden City by Edgar Rice Burroughs, 1938
Burroughs reworked old themes in this one. There’s another lost valley with two rival cities, a fabulous gem that lures white men to search for it, an evil queen, countless captures and escapes/rescues, and the third case where Tarzan runs into his own double. This one is SF as well, because the giant diamond is inside a volcano that is home to a bunch of surviving dinosaurs. He also has to battle oversized sea horses and the usual human villains. This is actually based on a radio play written by someone else so I suppose Burroughs can be forgiven the repetition, although it is not clear why he bothered with an adaptation. 11/1/25
Tarzan and the Leopard Men by Edgar Rice Burroughs, 1935
Tarzan is injured during a violent storm and loses his memory – again. He was on a mission to wipe out the Leopard Men – a secret cult of cannibals – and he continues in that vein even as an amnesiac. There is also a woman searching for her brother, a pair of ivory poachers, and the comparatively friendly native who rescues Tarzan as the story begins. This one was rather monotonous after a while, and oddly it is the only one in the series to have vague undertones of violent sex. I think Burroughs was beginning to tire of the character by this point. 10/23/25
Tarzan’s Quest by Edgar Rice Burroughs, 1936
Aka Tarzan and the Immortal Men. Finally Jane gets to be a major character. She is aboard a plane that crashes in the jungle, and since she is the only one with experience, she becomes the head of the group as they try to reach civilization. Tarzan has been looking for a mysterious group of white barbarians who have been raiding the local villages for women, who are never seen again. Predictably, Jane is eventually captured by the bad guys – who have achieved immortality by harvesting organs from female victims – and has to be rescued by Tarzan, who shows up in the nick of time. Jane had been missing from the last several books, and she would slip back into obscurity for the last few in the series. 10/23/25
Tarzan and the Lion Man by Edgar Rice Burroughs, 1934
Burroughs did not like Hollywood and this very atypical novel is filled with satire of the movie industry. A safari is sent to make a film about a boy raised by lions, but they get involved with talking apes, a lost city, perfidious Arabs who kidnap actresses, and an actor who is Tarzan’s double. Tarzan is in fact off stage for more than half of the novel as the story pokes fun at the stupidity of the staff and the petty rivalries of the cast. Tarzan is pretty much the only adult in the room. Although this was considered a weak addition to the series, I found it to be one of the more interesting books because of its novelty. 10/18/25
The Golden Horn by Poul Anderson, Zebra, 1980
Fist in the Last Viking trilogy. Harald is a Norwegian prince who is forced by political intrigues to flee Scandinavia as a young man. He spends years in Constantinople, most of that time as a soldier. This improves his military knowledge and also exposes him to more sophisticated methods of government and diplomacy. He falls in love, but that causes trouble because a powerful woman is opposed to his affair. As the first book comes to a close, a much more seasoned man decides to return to his homeland and try to forge an empire of his own. 10/4/25
The Road of the Sea Horse by Poul Anderson, Zebra, 1980
Second in the Last Viking trilogy. Harald has returned to Norway where he sets about organizing the clans into an integrated army so that he can conquer the rest of Scandinavia. Things do not go entirely his way. There is a great deal of resistance to his efforts to alter the local culture and the Danes in particular are fond of their current king and unwilling to replace him with an unknown and ambitious foreigner. For the most part, he achieves his main ambitions, but the structure of his government is shaky and unsustainable. 10/4/25
The Sign of the Raven by Poul Anderson, Zebra, 1980
Final volume in the Last Viking trilogy. King Harald’s ambitions in Scandinavia have been thwarted by the Danes. Then the brother of the current king of England suggests that he might want to invade and seize the crown. Harald assembles a large army and fleet and sets sail. The landing is a success and the English are defeated in the first few battles. But King Godwinson makes a brilliant surprise attack and catches Harald off guard. He is killed in the battle, and his followers withdraw. This was the last attempt by the Vikings to invade on a large scale. 10/4/25
Tarzan and the City of Gold by Edgar Rice Burroughs, 1932
There are two lost cities in this Tarzan novel and they have been at war for generations. They are, of course, white people because Tarzan has to flirt with the insane queen of one of them. He is trying to help a man find his home when a flood leaves him the captive of a city that worships lions, has a large arena where men fight to the death, and whose queen falls in love with him. The early part of the book is pretty good but the plot falls into an all too familiar pattern after a while and ends predictably. By this point in the series, one might wonder what has happened to Jane, who has not even been mentioned for years. 9/25/25
The Tarzan Twins by Edgar Rice Burroughs, 1927
A novella intended for younger readers. Two young and unusually agile and athletic boys are invited to Tarzan’s jungle estate. There they get involved in some mild adventures including an encounter with Tarzan’s ally, the golden lion. The story is only in the Tarzan series peripherally – it is really about the two boys. They are unrealistically precocious and the plot is a good deal simpler than Burroughs used in is other Tarzan novels. 9/25/25
Tarzan Triumphant by Edgar Rice Burroughs, 1930
Burroughs modified his format for the series slightly with this volume. He made more extensive use of multiple viewpoints in order to tell individual stories before bringing the separate plotlines together in the closing chapters. A gangster and a scientist become unlikely friends on a joint safari. A female pilot is forced to parachute into unknown territory and finds herself in a lost city that practices human sacrifice. Tarzan encounters the usual array of animal dangers, this time including baboons. They all run around, mostly missing each other. The pilot and a young woman flee from the hidden city. A pack of slave traders runs into trouble. Tarzan teams up with the gangster, who is actually a good guy. 9/25/25
Tarzan the Invincible by Edgar Rice Burroughs, 1930
Tarzan has to return to Opar yet again, this time because a group of communist agents have targeted the city because of its vast treasure trove. With their jewels and gold, they plan to finance an international war of sabotage and propaganda. Tarzan, being a good capitalist, is determined to stop them. The situation is complicated because elements in Opar hate Tarzan, despite their priestess, who is in love with him. The usual adventures follow until the villains are thwarted. One of them is a young woman who has a good heart and is convinced of the error of her ways. Minor even for this series. 9/20/25
Tarzan and the Lost Empire by Edgar Rice Burroughs, 1929
Yet another lost civilization in Africa, this one the result of a Roman legion that lost its way and developed a new civilization in the jungle. Tarzan is looking for the son of an old friend who disappeared in the area. The missing man has been captured by one Roman city and Tarzan is captured by the other. Neither city is particularly appealing – both have cruel dictators. Not surprisingly, Tarzan manages to escape, rescues the other outsider, and undermines the villains in both cities. The lost world theme had been thoroughly worn out by this time in the series, but Burroughs did not abandon it. 9/15/25
Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle by Edgar Rice Burroughs, 1928
Tarzan finds another lost civilization in this one. His part of Africa is pretty crowded with them. This one replicates medieval Europe. There is a little bit of novelty having him deal with swords and lances instead of guns and spears, but not a lot. Although as well written as any of the others in the series, the Tarzan books had started to feel all the same at this point and this became even more evident with the next in the series. Tarzan gets to rescue young women in most of the books, but Jane seems to have receded into the background and his son Korak is almost a distant memory. 9/12/25
Tarzan and the Ant-Men by Edgar Rice Burroughs, 1927
Listing this with the other adventure stories, but it is clearly science fiction. Tarzan crashes his plane in unknown country and is captured by what are technically giants living in a matriarchy, then escapes to another civilization of eight inch tall humans who are constantly at war, who shrink and enslave him, and eventually make him immortal. He escapes, of course, is restored to his normal size, upsets the local political order, and then returns to the outside world. This was actually one of the best of the Tarzan novels. Burroughs would re-use the lost world theme so often after this that it became silly. 9/10/25
Tarzan and the Golden Lion by Edgar Rice Burroughs, 1922
Tarzan adopts a lion cub and heads to Opar to raid their treasure trove again. There is also a safari run by men who believe Tarzan has his own treasure on his estate. Tarzan runs into more political problems in Opar and learns of yet another lost city beyond it. Someone pretending to be Tarzan has ruined his reputation. The new lost city is based on slave holding and Tarzan leads them to freedom. The villainous safari is dealt with, as is the imposter. The politics in Opar remain contested. Through all of this, Tarzan’s best ally is the lion he raised, who proves pivotal in some of the crises. 9/5/25
Tarzan the Terrible by Edgar Rice Burroughs, 1921
Tarzan is still searching for his wife, who has been missing for two books already. He joins forces with a Pithecanthropus and a new kind of man-ape to visit their hidden city and discover whether or not that is where Jane has ended up. There is yet another lost world, this one surrounded by prehistoric animals and populated by primitive pre-humans. There is another nasty chief who has to be overthrown and a variety of animals – the usual jungle creatures plus the prehistoric ones – to overcome. I did not care for this particularly. The odd names and peculiar speech patterns slowed my reading and thus made the plot feel slow moving as well, although it actually is rather brisk. 9/2/25
Tarzan the Untamed by Edgar Rice Burroughs, 1916
Tarzan believes that German military personnel have murdered his wife Jane, so he sets out to wreak vengeance on those responsible. This includes sniping, sending wild animals against Germans, and variations of both. Later there is a beautiful German spy, a stranded British aviator, cannibals, a lost city inhabited only by the insane, a renegade military unit with murderous intentions, and the usual variety of dangerous predators. This one gets very repetitive. Tarzan has to rescue the other two main characters four or five times. At the end he discovers that his wife Jane is not dead after all, but he still does not know where she is. 8/18/25
The Gamblin’ Kid by Will F. Jenkins, Alfred King, 1933
Jenkins was the real name of SF writer Murray Leinster. This is one of several of his western novels, unprepossessing but more than adequately told. The main conflict is between the Kid, who is brash, a bit prone to violence, and a bit lacking in common sense. He makes an enemy of an older and more influential man which turns violent. The local sheriff likes the Kid and wants to protect him from himself and others, but it is like trying to contain a whirlwind. This one never had a paperback edition. 8/12/25
Jungle Tales of Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs, 1919
My least favorite Tarzan book was the only collection of short stories, all set during his adolescence. They involve such things as his attempt to find God, his capture by a local tribe, his frustrated mating instinct, his ongoing feud with a local witch-doctor and its ultimate conclusion, battles with jungle animals, parenting, a prowling lion, an eclipse, and so on. Burroughs was not really at ease in the short form and none of these stories is more than vaguely interesting. With one exception, all future Tarzan stories would be novels. 8/8/25
Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar by Edgar Rice Burroughs, 1916
Tarzan decides to raid the treasure vaults of the lost city, but an untimely earthquake traps him inside a mountain. Complicating matters is the presence of a group of bandits led by a renegade Belgian officer. Not to mention that the Oparians still want to sacrifice outsiders to their gods. And adding to the problem, a large band of slavers is about to attack Tarzan’s home, intent upon kidnapping Jane. The plot gets a bit repetitive. Jane gets kidnapped four times, and escapes or is rescued four times. Tarzan has to dodge hostile bands of Oparians, Abyssinians, and Arabs, all while suffering from amnesia. The bad guys mostly kill each other. 7/25/25
The Son of Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs, 1917
Tarzan’s teenage son runs away to help return a kidnapped ape to Africa. Unfortunately, he gets involved in the death of a crook and ends up living in the jungle. He rescues a kidnapped girl his own age from a cruel Sheik. They encounter the usual jungle dangers including leopards and killer apes. There are also two evil Europeans who want to kidnap the girl again and sell her to the highest bidder. A stranger appears in the area – and the reader will certainly recognize that he is Tarzan looking for his son. I never cared for this installment in the series. Only the Jungle Tales of Tarzan was worse. It is repetitious, Korak is never particularly interesting, and the story seems to take a bunch of random subplots and roughly join them at the end. 7/15/25
Tarzan and the Valley of Gold by Fritz Leiber, Ballantine, 1966
This was adapted from the screenplay by Clair Huffaker but it is far superior to the movie. After a brief fling in a Mexican bullfighting ring, Tarzan is off to Brazil at the request of an old friend. An international crimelord has learned of the existence of a lost city in the jungle where gold is plentiful. He has assembled a small army of thugs in preparation for conquering it. Tarzan has been called to the same area by a friend who wants him to help since he is familiar with jungle survival. He rescues the boy and the two of them are on the run from helicopters, tanks, and mercenaries. Eventually they reach the lost city where he is involved in a major battle to save it from an army of villains. This is almost certainly the best Tarzan novel ever written. 7/6/25
The Beasts of Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs, Ballantine, 1963 (originally published in 1914)
Jane and Tarzan’s infant son are kidnapped by his arch-enemy, Rogoff. Tarzan is stranded on an island where he makes alliances with a panther, a man-ape, and a local warrior chieftain. They reach the mainland and begin to search for Tarzan’s family. There are encounters with hostile tribes, and an almost funny series of captures and escapes, rinse and repeat, as Jane, the infant, and Tarzan get into and out of trouble, alone or with assistance. This was decidedly inferior to the first two novels although it does finally kill of Rokoff, the Russian spy who has become Tarzan’s nemesis. 7/1/25
The Return of Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs, 1913
The second Tarzan novel starts out in Europe. Tarzan has renounced his title in favor of his cousin, who is engaged to Jane Porter. Tarzan goes to France, has some troubles with a Russian spy, and becomes a kind of secret agent for the Frenc government. He is sent to Morocco to investigate a possible traitor, and runs into the Russian repeatedly. When his job is done, Tarzan books passage on a cruise ship, but is thrown overboard by the Russian. Meanwhile, his cousin and Jane are shipwrecked in the same area. Tarzan makes his first visit to Opar as well. Not typical of the series as a whole. 6/22/25
Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs, Ballantine, 1963 (originally published in 1912)
The very first story about the King of the Jungle, showing how his family was stranded in Africa and died, leaving him to be raised by man-apes. They are smarter than gorillas and technically this series flirts with science fiction a lot, but I'm going to list them under general fiction. As a young man, Tarzan rescues Jane Porter when she is abducted into slavery, battles wild animals, unfriendly natives, and merciless mutineers. At the end he travels to Baltimore in time to return the Porter family's treasure and save Jane from a forced marriage to a creditor. If you can ignore the occasional racism, this is fun. 5/31/25
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon, Vintage, 2003
The most unusual quasi-mystery novel I’ve ever read, I think. It's really not in that genre at all. An autistic boy with extreme OCD decides to find out who murdered a neighbor’s dog. He is the narrator so there are excursions into various aspects of autism and obsession, but rather than being distractions these are actually the biggest and best parts of the novel. The boy has an unusual relationship with his father, who is a sympathetic but seriously flawed character. His mother, presumed dead for most of the book, proves equally complex when she resurfaces. The conclusion provides a kind of compromise ending rather than a clear one. 5/22/25
The Greystoke Legacy by Andy Briggs, Faber, 2011
The first of three Tarzan novels by this author, ostensibly for younger readers although there is a good deal of explicit violence. It is very much in the Burroughs vein and takes place before Tarzan learns his true identity and has contact with the outside world. He battles a band of rebellious poachers in this one, and is also opposed to an illegal logging operation, run by the father of young Jane Porter, who will eventually become his wife. He has the usual battles – lion, leopard, etc. along the way. Quite loyal to the original books. 4/21/25
The Jungle Warrior by Andy Briggs, Faber, 2012
Second in a trilogy of Tarzan stories for young adults. Young Tarzan and Jane have to battle a famous big game hunter who has kidnapped a gorilla friend of Tarzan to sell to a zoo. He also views Tarzan as a personal challenge because he has become bored with the usual game he hunts. The story is embellished with more encounters with wild animals which menace various parties. Tarzan still refuses to consider investigating the outside world. Reasonably entertaining but not as good as the first in the series. 4/21/25
The Savage Lands by Andy Briggs, Faber, 2013
Third in a trilogy about a young Tarzan and Jane. His existence has come to the attention of his cousin, who has been recognized as Lord Greystoke. Then cousin does not want to relinquish control of the family fortune, so he travels to Africa intent upon murder. Jane and a friend learn his intentions and set out to warn Tarzan, but they get lost and end up as prisoners in the city of Opar. Things are even more dangerous than they appear, however, because a nearby volcano threatens to kill everyone. Tarzan, naturally, comes to the rescue while the villains are largely killed during the eruption. Not bad at all. Briggs managed to generate the feel of the original series. 4/21/25
Tarzan and the Forest of Stone by Jeffrey J. Mariotte, ERB, 2022
Tarzan is in America in conjunction with a movie about his adventures. While traveling through the west by train, he meets a young woman who is kidnapped by train robbers who are after a valuable artifact and who take her on impulse. Tarzan sets out to track them down, but there is also a professional killer looking for the gang because he was also hired to steal the artifact. The various parties converge on a petrified forest where Tarzan and the killer fight to the death. The woman is rescued and the artifact retrieved. Not a bad adventure, but very atypical. 4/17/25
Tarzan and the Lost Safari, Whitman, 1957 (no author credited)
This was an anonymous novelization of a Tarzan movie. It’s a pretty standard story. Tarzan is investigating tumors that the hidden city of Opar is sending out raiding parties to kidnap Europeans to sacrifice to their gods. He sees a plane crash and helps rescue five people, including a known criminal, two pushy idiots, and two sympathetic characters. He tries to lead them back to civilization but the Oparians are hunting them and the villain in their group has connections with them and tries to turn over his companions to save his own life. Tarzan thwarts him, of course, and arranges their escape to safety. Rather dull, actually. 3/30/25
The Mark of the Red Hyena by George S. Elrick, Whitman, 1967
This is a novelette for younger readers featuring Tarzan, authorized by the estate. A renegade Englishman has organized several hundred poachers into an army. He plans to wipe out all the big game so that the outside world will stay away from a large portion of Africa, which he can then rule. When Tarzan opposes him, Barton has his wife Jane kidnapped. Tarzan raises an army of gorillas and uses them to attack Barton’s headquarters and rescue her. Mildly amusing. 3/30/25
The Golden Wind by L. Sprague de Camp, Curtis, 1969
De Camp’s final historical novel is the shortest and least interesting. The protagonist is a sea captain who undertakes a mission from the King of Egypt to find the shortest route to India. He ends up taking two separate voyages there. Along the way he battle disease, pirates, muggers, cultists, cannibals, mutineers, a vindictive queen, malevolent customs officials, and betrayal by a man he believed to be his friend. The adventures are episodic but feel hurried and sometimes forced. Neither the character nor the various locations come to life, and the story tends to be repetitive. 3/20/25
The Arrows of Hercules by L. Sprague de Camp, Curtis, 1965
The protagonist of this adventure story is an engineer who eventually builds an engine that can fire oversized arrows, which he does under contract to the ruler of Syracuse, who is preparing for war with Carthage. He falls in love, has to kidnap his betrothed's young son, escapes would be slavers, competes with an ambitious and unscrupulous rival, convinces his family to tolerate a marriage they initially opposed, travels briefly to enemy territory as part of a mission hoping to entice engineers away from the Phoenicians, and has various other adventures. The first half of the novel is quite good, but it wanders around quite a bit in the second half and was considerably less engaging. 3/12/25
The Honey Ant by Duncan Kyle, Fontana, 1988
A British woman inherits a ranch in the middle of the Outback in Australia. She and the estate lawyer go to look over the property and are promptly attacked by strange men who abandon them in the desert to die. Fortunately, they survive but their troubles are not over. It appears that the woman who lived on the ranch had a cache of emeralds worth a great deal of money. They have a series of adventures before identifying the crooks who want to steal them and thwarting their plans. At the end, she gives the ranch to some aborigines and goes back to England with the bulk of the cash. Not bad, but Kyle seems to have been running out of idea. 3/4/25
Exit by Duncan Kyle, Harper, 1993
Kyle’s final novel was also his weakest. A former Soviet bodyguard to Stalin knows of some deep dark secret concealed in the Kremlin. He escapes Russia and makes use of multiple identities to evade those pursuing him, but is finally murdered while serving a short prison sentence. His lawyer receives clues about the secret he uncovered and travels to England in order to find sections of manuscript that will eventually lead him to the end of the trail. Along the way he runs into some cartoonish American and Russian spies, along with a host of minor characters. The caricatures are so absurd that it spoiled the story for me. 3/4/25The Dragon of the Ishtar Gate by L. Sprague de Camp, Lancer, 1961
This historical novel is set during the rule of King Xerxes of Persia. He sends an adventurer and a scholar on a trip to the source of the Nile, where he is supposed to capture a dragon whose blood is t he key to immortality. This entails a journey of more than a year, during which they have a variety of adventures including cannibals, strange beasts, assassins, bandits, and natural dangers. The story is necessarily episodic and the book is long enough that it begins to feel somewhat repetitious toward the end. That said, it is still one of my favorite stories set in the real ancient world. 2/28/25
The Dancing Men by Duncan Kyle, Fontana, 1985
I didn’t like this one very much. Kyle is very uneven. The premise this time is that an outstanding candidate is about to run for President. His unscrupulous half brother wants to suppress an investigation into their grandfather, who was dishonorably discharged from the British army, spent some time in Australia, and then emigrated to America. The man in charge of the investigation is promptly murdered, but unfortunately he had already hired an agent who does not know his employer is dead and continues the investigation, turning up a series of unsavory surprises. He does not know that the grandfather is connected to the candidate, but he does know that someone is trying to kill him. Too slow moving and at times somewhat implausible. 2/22/25The Bronze God of Rhodes by L. Sprague de Camp, Bantam, 1960
This is my favorite de Camp novel in any genre and t his was my fourth reading. The narrator is the engineer in charge of erecting the Colossus of Rhodes, against the background of an ancient war. He is sent on several missions which allows de Camp to provide a tour of different parts of the ancient world. The account of the year long siege is superb. The complicated battles are presented in easily discernible form and they are exciting and innovative. Several of the characters – historical figures and fictional ones – are very well developed. 2/21/25An Elephant for Aristotle by L. Sprague de Camp, Curtis, 1958
The first of de Camp’s five historical novels is mostly a travelogue of the ancient world. Alexander the Great is in India and wants to send a live elephant back to Athens so that Aristotle can study it. This means a long and perilous journey across the known world, and a brief sea voyage, and the narrator is the man placed in charge of the mission. Bandits, deserters, hostile tribesmen, dangerous deserts, logistical problems, financial woes, kidnappers, corrupt officials, food shortages, and other problems arise along the way. It is quite episodic despite the unifying theme. The various cities and civilizations they see are described in considerable detail.The King’s Commissar by Duncan Kyle, Fontana, 1983
A prominent bank has been making a large annual payment to a Swiss bank account for sixty years and the new manager wants to know why. This leads to a search for several documents that tell the story of a British naval officer during World War I who was sent on a mission to ransom the Tsar and his family from 1918 Russia. The two stories – the search for the documents and the rescue attempt – alternate sections. Unfortunately, I didn’t think either was particularly successful. We know the rescue is going to fail. It’s just a matter of time. And the search in the present is routine and episodic. 2/15/25Stalking Point by Duncan Kyle, St Martins, 1981
I’m afraid this one never really interested me and it was too long for its plot. A minor German diplomat learns that Churchill and Roosevelt are having a secret meeting aboard a British battleship off the coast of Canada just prior to the US entering the war. He also has found out that a talented pilot is actually a German living under a false name. The pilot is not particularly interested in helping Germany but blackmail and threats against his wife force him to participate. At the last minute, he sabotages the plan and both he and the diplomat die. The middle third of the novel is very repetitive. 2/10/25Black Camelot by Duncan Kyle, Berkley, 1978
A complicated plan is put into motion in order to create conflict between Russia and the West during the closing months of World War II. The plan goes awry when the unwitting agent, a disenchanted SS officer, realizes that he has been made into an expendable tool. He tries to blackmail some of the people on a list of German sympathizers in England and is then forced to participate in a raid on a German castle to destroy the other copy. Fairly good battle sequence but the story moves in fits and starts and I never liked any of the characters.. 2/4/25
Green River High by Duncan Kyle, Fontana, 1979
A bored bank employee and a very assertive retired missionary nurse decide to visit Borneo to see if they can recover some stolen gems. The man’s father was flying them across the island when he crashed and died after being helped by the nurse. They are accompanied by a very shady admitted thief with motives of his own. The usual jungle adventures follow – a swamped boat, fever, hostile locals, rebel insurgents, wild animals, and natural hazards. They reach their goal only to discover that they have been manipulated all along and are now prisoners of a band of armed guerillas. They foil their captors, of course, but the gems are destroyed in the process. 2/4/25
Hero by Saul Wernick, Pocket, 1981
The author’s final novel is a suspense story that begins, sort of, when a writer moves to a small town in order to write a history of the area. He stumbles into a murder mystery that took place during World War I and has to figure out whether the two elderly veterans he interviews are telling him the truth. He also attracts the ire of a violent young man who is probably insane. Two murderous rampages follow by two different characters until ultimately their paths coincide and they take each other’s lives. But in fact someone else is at least morally responsible for all of the deaths. Not great but entertaining. 1/24/25
Terror’s Cradle by Duncan Kyle, Fontana, 1975
Another rather cynical adventure involving international intrigue and the amorality of all of the various intelligence services, friends and foe. A woman on an assignment in Russia has a sensitive photograph planted among her things. She is abducted in Sweden, but there are so many different interested parties that it is difficult to figure out just what is going on. Two men are murdered. Her would-be boyfriend tries to find out what happened when she suddenly disappears, presumably kidnapped. She left some clues behind which eventually lead him to recover the material and secure her release, but they are so abstruse that his ability to figure out what they meant is just impossible to believe. Not a bad story otherwise. 1/18/25
The Semonov Impulse by Duncan Kyle, Fontana, 1975
A Nazi hunter is frustrated by Israel’s cancellation of its search program for war crimes and acts with a few friends in a badly botched attempt to hijack an aircraft carrying a target. He escapes to England pursued by British police, Russian spies, and Israeli diplomats. He promptly kidnaps a Russian gymnast and demands that they trade the ex-Nazi for her. That doesn’t happen. He screws up again and gets chased all over the place, causing the death of some friends and the ruination of the lives of several others. The kidnap victim is treated brutally as well. She is eventually rescued but he escapes and we never find our what happened to him. I found it impossible to feel any sympathy for this twisted person who values blood vengeance over friendship and humanity. A very unpleasant book. 1/18/25
Whiteout! by Duncan Kyle, Fontana, 1976
Aka In Deep. The protagonist is sent to a remote US military base in Greenland to demonstrate a hovercraft that might be useful there. The base is plagued by a series of mishaps – generator failures, a rogue polar bear – that turns out to be fake, a helicopter crash, mental breakdowns, and other problems. There are so many in such a short period of time that it is clearly sabotage, although it appears that almost no one recognizes the truth. The reason for the sabotage is confusing and unconvincing. This was the first Kyle novel I disliked. It just never convinced me that the characters and situations were real. 1/18/25
Massacre Basin by Brian Garfield (as Frank Wynne), Ace, 1961
Another familiar plot but handled quite well. The death of an influential rancher leaves his daughter in charge, protected by a foreman who is qui a351etly competent but determined to protect his employer. The forces arrayed against them are formidable, however, including not only people who want to pressure her into selling out but also by rustlers who hope to profit from the escalating and increasingly violent rivalries in the area. Not surprisingly, the good guys eventually win, but the body count is pretty high in this relatively short adventure. 1/9/25
The Badge Shooters by Clement Hardin, Ace, 1960
A standard story of a wanderer who becomes the lawman in a town dominated by a powerful and ruthless man. He falls in love with a woman, who dislikes him because of his emotionless demeanor, and tries to come to an accommodation with the chief villain. That doesn’t work for long and eventually there is a confrontation after which he shows his human side and gets the girl along with peace and quiet. 1/9/25
A Raft of Swords by Duncan Kyle, Fontana, 1973
An unusual story of espionage and international intrigue. The Russians had secretly put a missile basis underwater near the Canadian coast. They believe the fixture is deteriorating and need to secretly retrieve it. The plan is to use a midget submarine to raise them six missiles and conceal them inside hollow logs, which can be towed to a rendezvous with a Russian warship. British intelligence knows something is going on but as they gather more information, it becomes expedient to allow the Russians to complete their operation. Unfortunately, one of their agents is not told the change of plans and nearly explodes the whole thing publicly. Pretty good, if a bit cynical. 1/9/25
Bird Isle by Jack Vance, Spatterlight, 1957
Aka Isle of Birds. This was Vance’s only mainstream novel, intended as a kind of P.G. Wodehouse comedy, although the humor only works intermittently. The story is set on an island that has only two significant institutions. One is a finishing school for girls, run rather ineptly and with a great deal of silliness. The other is a hotel that has seen better days and is slowly proceeding toward insolvency. There is a bit of Fawlty Towers type humor here as well. Although not a bad story, it was clear that Vance’s talents lay elsewhere. 1/9/25