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2.0 out of 5 stars
The Modest Virtue of Briskness, February 12, 2010
Otis Adelbert Kline (1891- 1946) was one of the American "scientific romance" writers of the early twentieth century. Some of the other writers in this school were Edgar Rice Burroughs, A. Merritt, Ray Cummings, George Allan England, H. Bedford-Jones, and Charles B. Stilson. These authors looked to colorful "new frontiers" for settings of rather garish adventures. Some of these settings included lost valleys, underground caverns, distant planets, the jungles of Africa, the interior of a hollow Earth or Moon, or the electron of an atom.
There are still accounts floating about of a literary feud between Burroughs and Kline. The origin for these stories was an article by Donald A. Wolheim. Since that time, this thesis has been debunked in a study done by Richard A. Lupoff. Lupoff found no written or oral evidence of such a feud. Wolheim later admitted that he made the whole thing up. I think that it is fair to say that there was no rivalry or sense of hard feelings between the two authors. A similar case is that of stories circulated about a nonexistant feud between Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi that were generated by Hollywood publicists.
That being said, it must be acknowledged that most of Kline's novels were blatant imitations (one might say "rip-offs") of Burroughs. Kline did not have the original imagination of Burroughs, the sense of color and rough poetry of Merritt, the scientific knowledge of Cummings, or the basic craftsmanship of Bedford-Jones. Moreover, his writing was frequently tinged with racial and sexual stereotypes. Even by the standards of his own day, he could not be said to be a major scientific romancer.
But Kline did have one virtue as a writer, which might be characterized as that of briskness. Kline would get right down to business and start his action as soon as possible. He would then keep things moving until the close of the novel. Let us take _The Planet of Peril_ (1929), for example. At the opening of chapter one, Robert Grandon, our hero, is listening to a performance of _Don Giovanni_. By the opening of chapter three, he is waking up in some slave barracks on Venus. And bear in mind that the chapters in this novel are short.
There follow a series of capture and escape episodes involving prison guards, hyeenalike predators, noble rebels, a reptilian monster, a beautiful queen, insectlike sabots and their human slaves, the underground palace of a lost race, and more. Much more. There are cliffhanging moments aplenty, but there is not a lot of structure to them. Sometimes they occur at the end of a chapter, other times at the begining or middle of a chapter.
On some occasions scenes shift, with some degree of confusion. For example, at the end of chapter four, Grandon finds himself surrounded by an armed band of men. The begining of the next chapter opens in the palace of the queen. But instead of letting this scene play out for a full chapter, Kline abruptly switches scenes in mid-chapter to reveal that Grandin is among the rebels and that he is demonstrating his fencing skills to them.
On another occasion, Grandon and the queen are captured separately by the sabots and are enslaved. Though a slave, Grandon is able to make it back to the site of their original camp and deduce that Vernia probably has been captured as well. But he is not able to escape, and he has to return to the insect plantation.
Ah, well. No matter. No matter. Kline keeps things moving, even if it doesn't always make a lot of sense. And Kline buffs (there are still a few today) seem to like that briskness, that action-oriented quality of his.
Perhaps it might be appropriate to close with a few bibliographical notes. _The Planet of Peril_ (1929) was the first of three adventure novels set on Venus. They were imitations of the Burroughs Barsoom planetary romances with a slightly different setting. Burroughs had not yet written any Venus adventures of his own. The other two novels are: _The Prince of Peril_ (1930) and _The Port of Peril_ (1949). The third novel was originally a six-part serial in _Weird Tales_ in 1932 under the title _Buccaneers of Venus_. Kline also wrote two Martian novels, _The Swordsman of Mars_ and _The Outlaw of Mars_. Both were serialized in _Argosy_ in 1933. There were also several series that were imitations of the Tarzan novels.
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3.0 out of 5 stars
After Burroughs and Brackett, Kline was the best author of the planetary romance genre., January 4, 2011
In 1929, Edgar Rice Burroughs approached his editor with the idea of starting a series of Barsoom-like novels set on Venus. His editor quickly informed him another author had already secured the publication of a Venus novel. This delayed Burroughs' writing of his own Venus series by a couple of years. The author whose story appeared in the magazine was Otis Adelbert Kline. The story was this book, Planet of Peril, written (or at least begun) by Kline years earlier in 1922. The novel begins with the abduction by the mysterious Dr Morgan of a man named Robert Grandon. Grandon soon learns Morgan has established a telepathic link with a scientist on Venus (known as Zarovia to its inhabitants) who has found men willing to do astral body transfers with Grandon and a man named Harry Thorne, who really was a Martian named Borgen Takkor who had already engaged in a transference. Once on Venus, Grandon finds himself a slave under the imperious Queen Vernia, whom he soon desires to possess. From there, it's all adventure as Grandon and Vernia alternately battle and assist each other across Venus. Kline lets his imagination go wild with hyena-like animals capable of cutting down trees, giant termites capable of enslaving men, treachery in Vernia's court, and all kinds of other exotic delights as Grandon seeks his destiny on Venus. Unfortunately despite its vivid description of Venus and sense of wonder, the flaws of this novel as Kline's first full-length work are obvious. Pacing at times is poor. Plotting assumes slapdash laziness at times. Characters engage in sudden shifts from good to evil and back again as the plot dictates with no underlying indication of legitimate motivations. Grandon himself alternates between grating cliched pulp stupidity and omnicompetence. Nonetheless, this book, despite its many flaws, is a worthwhile read sure to delight fans of its genre. On final note though: The edition pulished by Pulpville Press is the definitive one. Any edition published before the Pulpville edition features a cut and bowdlerized version originally published by Tom Bouregy and Associates and later by Avon. That is an inferior text to be avoided in favor of the Pulpville print, which is taken directly from the original mafgazine publication.
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