Land of Terror (Annotated) E-Book

Edgar Rice Burroughs

• Herausgeber: Muhammad Humza
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

Land of Terror by the most well-known author of the Tarzan series.  All of the words have been rewritten in a unique way to grab your interest. Science Fiction and Action are the genres of this novel.

Leseprobe

Edgar Rice Burroughs Biography

Edgar Rice Burroughs (1875-1950) was an American adventure writer whose Tarzan stories created a folk hero known around the world. His novels sold more than 100 million copies in 56 languages, making him one of the most widely read authors of the twentieth century.

Edgar Rice Burroughs was born September 1, 1875, in Chicago, Illinois, to George Tyler and Mary Evaline (Zeiger) Burroughs. His father was successful in business, and worked as a distiller and a battery manufacturer. Burroughs was educated at private schools in Chicago and in the state of Michigan. After his graduation from the Michigan Military Academy, he joined the U.S. Cavalry for a tour of duty in Arizona in 1896. He was not suited to this life and, thanks to his father's wealth and position, he left the military the following year. He briefly owned a stationary store in Idaho before moving back to Chicago and a position with the American Battery Company. Burroughs married Emma Centennia Hulbert on January 1, 1900; the couple would have three children: Joan, Hulbert, and John Coleman. A few years after the marriage, Burroughs again tried to seek his fortune in the West, holding various jobs in Idaho and Utah. By 1906, he was back in Chicago and working for Sears, Roebuck and Company. After several attempts to start his own business, Burroughs turned to writing as a career.

Many reviewers and biographers have often described Burroughs as a failed pencil-sharpener salesman who just wanted to support his wife and children when he began writing. Others note that it was the company that had failed, not Burroughs, and that he had succeeded in numerous jobs. In any case, Burroughs began his writing career with a Martian tale, best known by its hardback title: A Princess of Mars. The story was written in 1911, and published under the pseudonym Normal Bean (to let readers know he was not crazy and had a "normal bean") in All-Story magazine in 1912. The tale was not published in hardback until 1917. Astronomer Percival Lowell's theories of the canals of Mars were at the height of their popularity in 1911, and fired Burroughs' imagination. There were eleven books in the Mars series, the last of which, John Carter of Mars, was published fourteen years after the author's death.

The main character of the Mars series is John Carter, a gentleman from Virginia. In the first story, he falls into a cave only to wake up on the planet Mars-a sort of death that brings him to a new life. An adventurous man throughout the series, he saves women from villains, rescues the planet, and shows the various colored Martians that they need each other to survive. One year after the publication of A Princess of Mars in book form, Burroughs released The Gods of Mars. Additional installments of the John Carter saga appeared on a regular basis, including The Warlords of Mars (1919), Thuvia, Maid of Mars (1920), The Chessmen of Mars (1922), The Master Mind of Mars (1928), and A Fighting Man of Mars (1931). John Hollow, writing in the Dictionary of Literary Biography, praised the first three novels of the series as "a particularly fine instance of science fiction's attempt to cope with what Burroughs himself called 'the stern and unalterable cosmic laws,' the certainty that both individuals and whole races grow old and die."

Best Known for His Tarzan Books

The appearance of Burroughs' second published story, Tarzan of the Apes, in All-Story magazine in 1912, and the publication of the novel in hardcover form in 1914, made him a best-selling author. Thereafter, he devoted himself exclusively to writing. Although Burroughs wrote almost all types of popular fiction, he is perhaps most famous for the Tarzan series. The lead character, Tarzan, is the son of an English noble who is adopted by a female ape in the African jungle. He learns English, grows into manhood, meets and falls in love with Jane, the daughter of an American scientist, and recovers his title-all in the first two of 26 stories.

Tarzan of the Apes captured the public's imagination and the series proved to be a success. Only a few fictional heroes, such as Robin Hood and Superman, are as famous as Tarzan. People might not remember the author, but most everyone, including small children, recognize the name of the main character, often responding with a Tarzan-like yell. The Tarzan stories have been translated into more than 56 languages, and reportedly more than 25,000,000 copies of the Tarzan books have been sold worldwide. Burroughs' novels were so financially rewarding that he was able to open his own publishing house, named after himself and called Burroughs. Beginning with the 1931 release, Tarzan the Invincible, he published his own works.

The character of Tarzan has been the subject of comic strips, radio serials, three television series, and at least 40 movies, including a Disney animated film and a 1998 spoof, George of the Jungle. Tarzan of the Apes was first made into a silent film in 1918, with Elmo Lincoln as Tarzan. More than a dozen actors have since starred in the role, the most popular having been Johnny Weissmuller, a former Olympic swimming champion. Most of the actors in Tarzan films were in fine physical shape, but they still faced risks. In the 1920 serial, The Son of Tarzan, Hawaiian actor Kamuela Searle was seriously injured by an elephant and a stand-in had to be used to complete the film; Searle later died of his injuries.

Not Without Controversy

Burroughs and his Tarzan character have not been without controversy. Burroughs, who himself has been accused of racism in his portrayal of Africa, disliked how films usually made Tarzan a grunting savage. He portrayed Tarzan in his novels as an erudite and wealthy heir to the House of Greystoke, equally at home in the jungle or polite society. Novels such as The Return of Tarzan (1915), The Beasts of Tarzan (1916), Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar (1918), and Tarzan and the Golden Lion (1923) continued this tradition. The last volume in the series, Tarzan and the Castaways, was released in 1965. As George P. Elliott noted in the Hudson Review, Burroughs' "prejudices are so gross that no one bothers to analyze them out or to attack them.... They were clear-eyed, well-thewed prejudices arrayed only in a loin cloth; you can take them or leave them, unless your big prejudice happens to be anti-prejudice. What matters is the story, which tastes good."

Burroughs' Tarzan series received other criticism. Although a favorite with readers, the Tarzan books have been dismissed by literary critics as cheap pulp fiction. Brian Attebury, writing in The Fantasy Tradition in American Literature: From Irving to Le Guin, commented: "Burroughs was neither more nor less than a good storyteller, with as much power-and finesse-as a bulldozer." Details of the Tarzan books have come under scrutiny, and even anthropologists have taken Burroughs to task, insisting that he was wrong in writing that great apes raised Tarzan. They insisted that the young Tarzan could not possibly have learned to swing through the trees so gracefully with a chimpanzee as his tutor. For him to have achieved such agility his instructor must have been an orangutan. Burroughs fans argue, however, that the apes in the Tarzan series were neither chimpanzees nor orangutans but a man-like invention of the author. Burroughs himself claimed that he never tried to do more than entertain his readers, and was honest about his need for money. "I had a wife and two babies," he once explained.

Burroughs envisioned his Tarzan stories as wholesome family entertainment. Not all portrayals of Tarzan have had the family in mind, however, and Burroughs' descendants, who still run the company bearing his name from Tarzana, California (an estate near Hollywood, California, Burroughs bought in 1919 and later named), have found it necessary to go to court. In 1996, for example, the family filed a law suit against the makers of "Jungle Heat," alleging that the interactive CD-ROM was "the antithesis to the good, wholesome and attractive images of Tarzan," as noted in the Los Angeles Times. There have been countless imitations of Tarzan, such as a jungle man called Tongo on the television series Gilligan's Island, and a Listerine commercial in which a Tarzan-like character swings on a vine barefoot while in a tuxedo. But many of these imitations are either protected by the legal safeguards for satire, or use material in the public domain-fair game after the expiration of copyright protection, which is limited in time. But Burroughs not only copyrighted the books, he covered the character of Tarzan with a trademark-which does not expire. In 1923, the author founded the family corporation, establishing the trademark to forever control products that used the name or likeness of Tarzan, from movies to comic books and T-shirts.

Later Career and Other Novels

Later in his career, Burroughs began corresponding with scientists to learn all that was known about the planet Venus. Provided with these ideas, he started a new series. Beginning with the publication of Pirates of Venus in 1934, Burroughs published four more volumes in this set, including Lost on Venus (1935), Carson of Venus (1939), and Escape from Venus (1946). His last book in the series, The Wizard of Venus, was released in 1970. As the first book in the Venus series was getting published, Burroughs divorced his wife of 34 years; he married his second wife, Florence Dearholt, in 1935.

Burroughs also wrote four western adventure stories, all carefully researched and based on his experience as a cowboy on his older brothers' ranch in Idaho as a young man and as a cavalry soldier in Arizona. Some critics consider these the best of his writing, particularly the sympathetic treatment of Geronimo and his renegade Apaches. Among the novels written in this genre include Apache Devil (1933) and The Deputy Sheriff of Comanche County (1940).

Burroughs continued to write novels for the rest of his life, ultimately publishing some 68 titles in all. During World War II, he served as a journalist with the United Press and, at age 66, was the oldest war correspondent covering the South Pacific theater. Burroughs died of a heart attack on March 19, 1950. A number of his novels were published posthumously. Even after his death, Burroughs remained a popular author, and he sold millions of books in paperback.

The University of Louisville Library owns the largest institutional archive of Burroughs' works. The collection contains more than 67,000 items ranging in scope from the author's earliest school books to promotional materials from the 1990s. The library's collection of Tarzan memorabilia includes film stills and posters featuring 19 Tarzan actors. It also includes the best and most celebrated book artists, including J. Allen St. John, who illustrated a total of 33 first editions of Burroughs. Other artists featured in the collection include Frank Frazetta, whose works adorned the first paperback Burroughs books of the 1960s, and John Coleman Burroughs, the author's son, who illustrated eleven first editions of his father's stories. The collection also includes items from Burroughs' personal life and affairs, samples of his books, pulp editions, letters, merchandising goods and many photographs taken over the last 100 years.

Table of Contents

Title

About

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter

1

WHEN Jason Gridley got in touch with me recently by radio and told me it was The Year of Our Lord Nineteen Hundred and Thirty-nine on the outer crust, I could scarcely believe him, for it seems scarcely any time at all since Abner Perry and I bored our way through the Earth's crust to the inner world in the great iron mole that Perry had invented for the purpose of prospecting for minerals just beneath the surface of the Earth. It rather floored me to realize that we have been down here in Pellucidar for thirty-six years.

You see, in a world where there are no stars and no moon, and a stationary sun hangs constantly at zenith, there is no way to compute time; and so there is no such thing as time. I have come to believe that this is really true, because neither Perry nor I show any physical evidence of the passage of time. I was twenty when the iron mole broke through the crust of Pellucidar, and I don't look nor feel a great deal older now.

When I reminded Perry that he was one hundred and one years old, he nearly threw a fit. He said it was perfectly ridiculous and that Jason Gridley must have been hoaxing me; then he brightened up and called my attention to the fact that I was fifty-six. Fifty-six! Well, perhaps I should have been had I remained in Connecticut; but I'm still in my twenties down here.

When I look back at all that has happened to us at the Earth's core, I realize that a great deal more time has elapsed than has been apparent to us. We have seen so much. We have done so much. We have lived! We couldn't have crowded half of it into a lifetime on the outer crust. We have lived in the Stone Age, Perry and I-two men of the Twentieth Century-and we have brought some of the blessings of the Twentieth Century to these men of the Old Stone Age. They used to kill each other with stone hatchets and stone-shod spears before we came, and only a few tribes had even bows and arrows; but we have taught them how to make gunpowder and rifles and cannon, and they are commencing to realize the advantages of civilization.

I shall never forget, though, Perry's first experiments with gunpowder. When he got it perfected he was so proud you couldn't hold him. "Look at it!" he cried, as he exhibited a quantity of it for my inspection. "Feel of it. Smell of it. Taste it. This is the proudest day of my life, David. This is the first step toward civilization, and a long one."

Well, it certainly did seem to have all the physical attributes of gunpowder; but it must have lacked some of its spirit, for it wouldn't burn. Outside of that it was pretty good gunpowder. Perry was crushed; but he kept on experimenting, and after a while he produced an article that would kill anybody.

And then there was the beginning of the battle fleet. Perry and I built the first ship on the shores of a nameless sea. It was a flat-bottom contraption that bore a startling resemblance to an enormous coffin. Perry is a scientist. He had never built a ship and knew nothing about ship design; but he contended that because he was a scientist, and therefore a highly intelligent man, he was fitted to tackle the problem from a scientific bases. We built it on rollers, and when it was finished we started it down the beach toward the water. It sailed out magnificently for a couple of hundred feet and then turned over. Once again Perry was crushed; but he kept doggedly at it, and eventually we achieved a navy of sailing ships that permitted us to dominate the seas of our little corner of this great, mysterious inner world, and spread civilization and sudden death to an extent that amazed the natives. When I left Sari on this expedition I am about to tell you of, Perry was trying to perfect poison gas. He claimed that it would do even more to bring civilization to the Old Stone Age.

Chapter

2

THE NATIVES of Pellucidar are endowed with a homing instinct that verges on the miraculous, and believe me they need it, for no man could find his way anywhere here if he were transported beyond sight of a familiar landmark unless he possessed this instinct; and this is quite understandable when you visualize a world with a stationary sun hanging always at zenith, a world where there are neither moon nor stars to guide the traveler-a world where because of these things there is no north, nor south, nor east, nor west. It was this homing instinct of my companions that led me into the adventures I am about to narrate.

When we set out from Sari to search for von Horst, we followed vague clews that led us hither and yon from one country to another until finally we reached Lo-har and found our man; but returning to Sari it was not necessary to retrace our devious way. Instead, we moved in as nearly a direct line as possible, detouring only where natural obstacles seemed insurmountable.

It was a new world to all of us and, as usual, I found it extremely thrilling to view for the first time these virgin scenes that, perhaps, no human eye had ever looked upon before. This was adventure at its most glorious pinnacle. My whole being was stirred by the spirit of the pioneer and the explorer.

But how unlike my first experiences in Pellucidar, when Perry and I wandered aimlessly and alone in this savage world of colossal beasts, of hideous reptiles and of savage men. Now I was accompanied by a band of my own Sarians armed with rifles fabricated under Perry's direction in the arsenal that he had built in the land of Sari near the shore of the Lural Az. Even the mighty ryth, the monstrous cave bear that once roamed the prehistoric outer crust, held no terrors for us; while the largest of the dinosaurs proved no match against our bullets.

We made long marches after leaving Lo-bar, sleeping quite a number of times, which is the only way by which time may be even approximately measured, without encountering a single human being. The land across which we traveled was a paradise peopled only by wild beasts. Great herds of antelope, red deer, and the mighty Bos roamed fertile plains or lay in the cool shade of the park-like forests. We saw the mighty mammoth and huge Mai, the mastadon; and, naturally, where there was so much flesh, there were the flesh-eaters-the tarag, the mighty sabre-tooth tiger; the great cave lions, and various types of carnivorous dinosaurs. It was an ideal hunters' paradise; but there were only beasts there to hunt other beasts. Man had not yet come to bring discord to this living idyl.

These beasts were absolutely unafraid of us; but they were inordinately curious, and occasionally we were surrounded by such great numbers of them as to threaten our safety. These, of course, were all herbivorous animals. The flesh-eaters avoided us when their bellies were full; but they were always dangerous at all times.

After we crossed this great plain we entered a forest beyond which we could see mountains in the far distance. We slept twice in the forest, and then came into a valley down which ran a wide river which flowed out of the foothills of the mountains we had seen.

The great river flowed sluggishly past us down toward some unknown sea; and as it was necessary to cross it I set my men at work building rafts.

These Pellucidarian rivers, especially the large ones with a sluggish current, are extremely dangerous to cross because they are peopled more often than not by hideous, carnivorous reptiles, such as have been long extinct upon the outer crust. Many of these are large enough to have easily wrecked our raft; and so we kept a close watch upon the surface of the water as we poled our crude craft toward the opposite shore.

It was because our attention was thus focused that we did not notice the approach of several canoes loaded with warriors, coming downstream toward us from the foothills, until one of my men discovered them and gave the alarm when they were only a matter of a couple of hundred yards from us.

I hoped that they would prove friendly, as I had no desire to kill them, for, primitively armed as they were, they would be helpless in the face of our rifles; and so I gave the sign of peace, hoping to see it acknowledged in kind upon their part; but they made no response.

Closer and closer they came, until I could see them quite plainly. They were heavy-built, stocky warriors with bushy beards, a rather uncommon sight in Pellucidar where most of the pure-blood white tribes are beardless.

When they were about a hundred feet from us, their canoes all abreast, a number of warriors rose in the bow of each boat and opened fire upon us.

I say, "opened fire," from force of habit. As a matter of fact what they did was to project dart-like missiles at us from heavy sling-shots. Some of my men went down, and immediately I gave the order to fire.

I could see by their manner how astonished the bearded warriors were at the sound and effect of the rifles; but I will say for them that they were mighty courageous, for though the sound and the smoke must have been terrifying they never hesitated, but came on toward us even more rapidly. Then they did something that I had never seen done before nor since in the inner world. They lighted torches, made of what I afterward learned to be a resinous reed, and hurled them among us.

These torches gave off volumes of acrid black smoke that blinded and choked us. By the effects that the smoke had upon me, I know what it must have had upon my men; but I can only speak for myself, because, blinded and choking, I was helpless. I could not see the enemy, and so I could not fire at them in self-defense. I wanted to jump into the river and escape the smoke; but I knew that if I did that I should be immediately devoured by the ferocious creatures lurking beneath the surface.

I felt myself losing consciousness, and then hands seized me, and I knew that I was being dragged somewhere just as consciousness left me.

When I regained consciousness, I found myself lying bound in the bottom of a canoe among the hairy legs of the warriors who had captured me. Above me, and rather close on either hand, I could see rocky cliffs; so I knew that we were paddling through a narrow gorge. I tried to sit up; but one of the warriors kicked me in the face with a sandaled foot and pushed me down again.

They were discussing the battle in loud, gruff voices, shouting back and forth the length of the boat as first one and then another sought to make himself heard and express his individual theory as to the strange weapon that shot fire and smoke with a thunderous noise and dealt death at a great distance. I could easily understand them, as they spoke the language that is common to all human beings in Pellucidar, insofar as I know, for I have never heard another. Why all races and tribes, no matter how far separated, speak this one language, I do not know. It has always been a mystery to both Perry and myself.

Perry suggests that it may be a basic, primitive language that people living in the same environment with identical problems and surroundings would naturally develop to express their thoughts. Perhaps he is right-I do not know; but it is as good an explanation as any.

They kept on arguing about our weapons, and getting nowhere, until finally the warrior who had kicked me in the face said, "The prisoner, has got his senses back. He can tell us how sticks can be made to give forth smoke and flame and kill warriors a long way off."

"We can make him give us the secret," said another, "and then we can kill all the warriors of Gef and Julok and take all their men for ourselves."

I was a little puzzled by that remark, for it seemed to me that if they killed all the warriors there would be no men left; and then, as I looked more closely at my bearded, hairy captors, the strange, the astounding truth suddenly dawned upon me. These warriors were not men; they were women.

"Who wants any more men?" said another. "I don't. Those that I have give me enough trouble-gossiping, nagging, never doing their work properly. After a hard day hunting or fighting, I get all worn out beating them after I get home."

"The trouble with you, Rhump," said a third, "you're too easy with your men. You let them run all over you."

Rhump was the lady who had kicked me in the face. She may have been a soft-hearted creature; but she didn't impress me as such from my brief acquaintance with her. She had legs like a pro-football guard, and ears like a cannoneer. I couldn't imagine her letting anyone get away with anything because of a soft heart.

"Well," she replied, "all I can say, Fooge, is that if I had such a mean-spirited set of weaklings as your men are, I might not have as much trouble; but I like a little spirit in my men."

"Don't say anything about my men," shouted Fooge, as she aimed a blow at Rhump's head with a paddle.

Rhump dodged, and sat up in the boat reaching for her sling-shot, when a stentorian voice from the stern of the canoe shouted, "Sit down, and shut up."

I looked in the direction of the voice to see a perfectly enormous brute of a creature with a bushy black beard and close-set eyes. One look at her explained why the disturbance ceased immediately and Rhump and Fooge settled back on their thwarts. She was Gluck, the chief; and I can well imagine that she might have gained her position by her prowess.

Gluck fixed her bloodshot eyes upon me. "What is your name?" she bellowed.

"David," I replied.

"Where are you from?"

"From the land of Sari."

"How do you make sticks kill with smoke and a loud noise?" she demanded.

From what I had heard of their previous conversation, I knew that the question would eventually be forthcoming; and I had my answer ready for I knew that they could never understand a true explanation of rifles and gunpowder. "It is done by magic known only to the men of Sari," I replied.

"Hand him your paddle, Rhump," ordered Gluck.

As I took the paddle, I thought that she was going to make me help propel the canoe; but that was not in her mind at all.

"Now," she said, "use your magic to make smoke and a loud noise come from that stick; but see that you do not kill anybody."

"It is the wrong kind of a stick," I said. "I can do nothing with it;" and handed it back to Rhump.

"What kind of a stick is it, then?" she demanded.

"It is a very strong reed that grows only in Sari," I replied.

"I think you are lying to me. After we get to Oog, you had better find some of those sticks, if you know what's good for you."

As they paddled up through the narrow gorge, they got to discussing me. I may say that they were quite unreserved in their comments. The consensus of opinion seemed to be that I was too feminine to measure up to their ideal of what a man should be.

"Look at his arms and legs," said Fooge. "He's muscled like a woman."

"No sex appeal at all," commented Rhump.

"Well, we can put him to work with the other slaves," said Gluck. "He might even help with the fighting if the village is raided."

Fooge nodded. "That's about all he'll be good for."

Presently we came out of the gorge into a large valley where I could see open plains and forests, and on the right bank of the river a village. This was the village of Oog, our destination, the village of which Gluck was the chief.

Chapter

3

OOG WAS a primitive village. The walls of the huts were built of a bamboo-like reed set upright in the ground and interwoven with a long, tough grass. The roofs were covered with many layers of large leaves. In the center of the village was Gluck's hut, which was larger than the others which surrounded it in a rude circle. There was no palisade and no means of defense. Like their village, these people were utterly primitive, their culture being of an extremely low order. They fabricated a few earthenware vessels, which bore no sort of decoration, and wove a few very crude baskets. Their finest craftsmanship went into the building of their canoes, but even these were very crude affairs. Their slingshots were of the simplest kind. They had a few stone axes and knives, which were considered treasures; and as I never saw any being fabricated while I was among these people, I am of the opinion that they were taken from prisoners who hailed from countries outside the valley. Their smoke-sticks were evidently their own invention, for I have never seen them elsewhere; yet I wonder how much better I could have done with the means at their command.