Tarzan: The Lost Adventures (Mass Market Paperback)

by Edgar Rice Burroughs (Author) "NUMA THE LION padded silently along the trail of the man-thing he was stalking..." (more)
Key Phrases: scent spoor, buffalo leg, bronze giant, The Stick That Walks, Foreign Legion, University of Texas (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
The Ape Man rampages through the African jungle once again in a brawny, brutal adventure that Burroughs (1875- 1950) left unfinished at his death. It was recently completed by Lansdale in a series of paperbacks (1995), which have now been combined into this hardcover. Johnny Weismuller and those familiar with Tarzan only through film and TV may blanch at this noble beast who drinks hot blood from his bare-handed kills and slays foes with abandon and near superhuman skill. But this Tarzan is in the dark spirit of the Burroughs novels, and he's revived with pulpish glee by Lansdale, a smart choice whose own fiction (The Two-Bear Mambo, 1995) acknowledges the ferocity of life. Here, Tarzan, aided by Jad-bal-ja the lion and Nkima the chimp, defends a party of American archeologists in search of the Lost City of Ur. He combats brigands who would plunder the party and the jungle, the savage inhabitants of Ur and, finally, a mantis-like monster from the earth's core-a reminder that Burroughs's Tarzan novels were as much science fiction as jungle adventure. It's a fierce tale, told in rough prose, but readers who pant, for instance, at the sight of Tarzan slashing through a band of apes who have kidnapped a young blonde as their "slave" will thrill to this yarn.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Library Journal
Meanwhile, back in the jungle, fans of the ape man no longer have to monkey around with imitators. Horror writer Landsdale completed a manuscript left unfinished by Burroughs at the time of his death and delivers a new Tarzan adventure. (Classic Returns, LJ 7/97)
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: Del Rey; Reprint edition (April 28, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0345412737
• ISBN-13: 978-0345412737
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 4.2 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 2.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,150,218 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

28 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Should have picked another writer to finish it, November 20, 1999

By A Customer

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.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good Effort, But Not Quite ERB, January 19, 2004

By	James Sadler (Plano, TX United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Edgar Rice Burroughs' Tarzan: The Lost Adventure (Hardcover)

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.

18 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing to one who's read everything ERB wrote!, March 28, 1999

By	David Rhind "swordsman" (Dartmouth, NS, Canada) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Edgar Rice Burroughs' Tarzan: The Lost Adventure (Hardcover)

Mr. Lansdale has come up with a passable plot by copying Mr. Burroughs' most used formulae. Unfortunately, the book disappoints, even offends, in two critical areas. First, I wonder if he has ever read ERB's Tarzan stories enough to know the character. Lansdale's Tarzan alternates between taciturnity and sarcasm. By the time ERB got to "Tarzan and the Foreign Legion", Tarzan was amazingly social, able to carry on friendly conversation, given to smiling, even laughing occasionally, and had no problem with contractions. Lansdale's Tarzan ponders how he and Jane have grown apart and is unconcerned about getting home. ERB's Tarzan loved Jane deeply and she, in turn, understood his occasional need to escape into the jungle for the adventures of his boyhood. The second failing, one the introduction attempts to make excuses for, is Mr. Lansdale poor grammar and sentence structure. He writes in repetitive short sentence structure. Remember how you English teacher taught you to take: "He crossed the camp and sat on the stool. He picked up the map. Then he took a drink of coffee." and make it more interesting by changing it to: "Crossing the camp, he settled himself onto the stool. As he began to study the map, he reached for his coffee, taking a relaxing sip from it..." I think Mr. Lansdale missed that class. Dialogue is filled with a repetition of "said" and "asked". It becomes tedious. How about announced, sighed, grunted, gasped, commented, corrected, argued, inquired, added, continued, etc.? Variety holds a reader's interest better than repetition. I had high hopes that, like Fritz Leiber with "Tarzan and the Valley of Gold", it would be a well-written story, honoring the personality Mr. Burroughs created, which evolved through his 25 books (including "Tarzan and the Tarzan Twins"), as well as Mr. Burroughs' flowing style.