Product Description: 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.
better left as a fragment First, let me say I like Lansdale's other work, and I respect his clear love for Burroughs' characters. Still, he was not the author to finish Burroughs' final Tarzan novel--if anyone was. Much as with that other pulp-era barbarian, Conan, Tarzan is at his best when handled only by his creator. For anyone else to write a Tarzan novel--even one begun by Burroughs himself--is the equivalent of invading a man's home and sleeping with his wife: It's just wrong. For the most part, the story's a by-the-numbers Tarzan novel without the sexually charged tension of Tarzan's encounters with La or Nemone or the breathtaking pace of Burroughs' midperiod Tarzan adventures. As conceived by Lansdale, Ur is a moderately interesting city, though a bit dark for a Burroughs novel. Also, Lansdale cheats us of the seemingly promised confrontation between Tarzan and the giant king of Ur, while the language Tarzan uses is out of line with Burroughs' creation. Finally, having Tarzan meekly submit to Fate and walk to Pellucidar is something the Burroughsian Ape-man would never do. Overall, while this book is a noble effort, it falls short on too many levels to be really worth the effort other than as a curiosity.
Worst Tarzan book I've ever read! A note to real Tarzan fans: DO NOT bother reading the last Tarzan book, the missing manuscript finalized by Joe Lansdale. The book is really awful, it has totally lost the Burroughs original touch and feel. I was SOOO disappointed after reading the book that I was really furious. It was hard to recognize this Tarzan as the same person Burroughs was writing about. You have been warned!
Good Effort, But Not Quite ERB 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.
Boring, this one is not worth the time. Same old sceanrio in a Tarzan story, spend your valuable time reading the earlier books in the series, you'll be happy you did!
Should have picked another writer to finish it I eagerly awaited this book for about 15 years, ever since I learned that there was an unfinished Tarzan story by Burroughs, but I was quite disappointed by what was done with ERB's manuscript. Compare Lansdale's version with the synopsis of ERB's 80 page manuscript in the appendix to the Porges biography of ERB. Lansdale really butchered many elements already worked out by ERB. I understand it's very hard to match the quality of ERB's storytelling, and I don't like to overly criticize people, but it doesn't seem that Lansdale even tried to write a decent book. It reads to me like a hack job, with little regard for style or the character created by ERB. For example, would ERB have written "Keep your mind off the loincloth, dear?" I don't think so. Nor is ERB's Tarzan a braggart. His character is existential. But not so existential that he would just give up on Jane and enter Pellucidar. In the Dark Horse 4 part serial version of this book, there are so many errors as to believe that Lansdale was half asleep when he wrote this. For example, there are characters in certain scenes which are actually someplace else in Africa in a different part of the storyline. Tell me Lansdale didn't just write this book as quickly as he could. As for the reviewer who criticised ERB's supposedly dense style and praised Lansdale's stilted 3 word sentences and then said, "Well, I've read all the Tarzan, Barzoom, and Pellucidar novels at least twice, so I guess I'm well-informed also"... All I can respond to that is, if you've read Burroughs' Mars books so many times, why don't you know how to spell Barsoom? And one more thing, ERB's style is elegant, the thing which makes his stories immortal. Philip Jose Farmer should have been given the chance to finish ERB's last Tarzan novel (I'm not referring to his Tarzan pastiches A Feast Unknown and Lord of the Trees, which were meant to be humorous, not true adaptions of ERB's character). At least he understands the character better (read THE DARK HEART OF TIME for an example of this). This book gets 2 stars, not for Lansdale's efforts or lack thereof, but because of the occasional glimpse of a paragraph penned by Edgar Rice Burroughs, the Master of Adventure.
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