Customer Reviews

Back to the Stone Age

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Once again, ERB scores with a highly enjoyable read. If you're looking for great literature, skip Back to the Stone Age...or for that matter, virtually all of Burroughs' writing. However, if you appreciate pulp fiction from the first half of the 20th century, then it's hard to beat Edgar Rice Burroughs. Back to the Stone Age has all of his hallmarks: the incredible coincidences, the unique cultures and differing physical types of not-quite-human creatures, the extraordinary storytelling, and best of all, the hilarious insights into the human condition that ring true today. Here are some of my favorite passages from the book, regarding men and women and the timeless war between them:

"Wait until I get you," (Grum) screamed. "You'll wish you'd never been born."
Von Horst grinned as he featured the life that was in store for Horg should the Mammoth Man lose. Death would be sweeter.

Presently Grum came. Her little eyes were blood-shot, her frowzy hair at its frowziest. She was the personification of a stench, both morally and physically.
"Well," she said, "I guess Horg knows that he has a mate."
"Why did you beat him?" asked von Horst.
"You've got to start right with them," she explained. "If you give them the least little toe-hold you're lost, just as Mumal is."
He nodded in understanding of her philosophy; for, again, he had known women of the outer crust who were like her. Perhaps their technic was more refined, but their aim was identical. Marriage to them, meant a struggle for supremacy. It was a 50-50 proposition of their own devising--they took fifty and demanded the other fifty.



Burroughs went through a divorce about the same time this book was written, which may account for his rather jaded outlook on the bliss of married life. In any event, if you like ERB, put this one in your library.

Even though it was clear by the time ERB wrote this, the Pellucidar books were starting to falter, I greatly enjoyed this book. I have a few reasons for this: One, Von Horst (or Von) is a likeable hero who isn't quite as gratuitously stupid as some of Burroughs' other heroes. For another, I just liked the spunky, matter-of-fact heroine, La-ja. She's easily one of ERB's best heroines despite being cast in the standard mold of such a character. While parts of the book seemed overdone (ie, the Mammoth Men portion), others were quite appealing(the Gorbuses, Von's living death in the trodon cave). For me then this was a satisfying read that more than paid off when in the end Von finally fought Gaz. Surely not among ERB's best but definitely far above his worst.

Back to the Stone Age follows the adventures of Lieutenant von Horst of the airship O-220 in
Pellucidar as he attempts to find his fellow crew members after being separated from them during
a titanic herbivore stampede caused by hundreds of saber-toothed tigers conducting a mass
slaughter. Getting lost in Pellucidar, Edgar Rice Burroughs' world within our world, is rather easy to
do since it is virtually impossible to get one' bearings there. The Sun remains fixed in the center
of the sky and the horizon curves upward so even the tallest peaks tend to merge into the
background. This sort of enviorment tends to lead to much aimless wandering about, interrupted frequently
by the most unlikely of coincidences as characters separate and meet again a timely manner. This
precludes a coherent plot structure, but Von Horst does have some interesting adventures.

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