I've been reading Edgar Rice Burroughs books for the past 9 1/2 years or so . . . usually four days of the week. Which has taken me (and Joe, to whom I have read most of these books) through all of the John Carter novels, all of the Tarzan novels, and is about to take us through all of the Pellucidar novels. Which will be 44 books total. And yes, Carson of Venus is on deck.
But I've read a few books on my own. Mostly hard to find stuff, like Marcia of the Doorstep and You Lucky Girl! (both acquired via interlibrary loan, both pretty forgettable works) and the Miniature Book Tarzan Jr. (which I found online--apparently it was created by ERB for a fan, and only one copy exists!). But I also found a limited press run thing called Forgotten Tales of Love and Murder (which printed "all of ERB's non-Tarzan short stories") awhile back. I started reading it, but pooped out when I discovered that it just wasn't very good. Most of the stories had never been published, and it seemed to me that the reason was that most of them had never been finished and were not ready to be published. But despite all of the books already read and Joe and I being near the end of the Pellucidar series, the other day I realized that that still wasn't enough ERB for me, so I pulled out my copy of Forgotten Tales of Love and Murder to have another look at it.
As I said, this was a limited edition book from a small publisher--only 1,045 copies were printed, and I guess it didn't sell well, as it looks like you can still get one directly from the publisher for a mere $59.95 (plus $3.99 for shipping and handling) . . . even though I also see it listed on eBay and on various online bookstores for 2 times that price or more. Hmpf. It pays to shop around. Amazon has copies for sale prices ranging from $170 to $780. [Note to my readers: I will sell you my copy for slightly less than $780. And it is in fabulous shape.] I was pretty highly motivated to read this book for some reason--even though I am reading several other books right now which I like very much--and went through it in a couple of days. And . . . it still wasn't very good. There are eleven stories and then a series of "mystery puzzles." It goes like this:
"An Autobiographical Sketch"--which is okay. Kind of amusing. ERB writes with a smart alecky tone, makes up a lot of shit, and clearly has fun with this. This piece actually had been published previously--In Amazing Stories June, 1941.
"Jonathan's Patience"--Not much of a story. Interesting only in that it was written "circa 1904" . . . meaning that it predates ERB's professional debut by about 8 years, so written when he was about 33 years old. A very young 33 years old in writer years, I think.
"The Avenger"--from 1912, so still very early on . . . and it shows. Not a very good story. Some pretty disgusting violence, too, when a guy beats another guy's face in--literally. (Literally literally.) Not my cuppatea on that count, but also just not much of a story. The big twist at the end was not even close to being a surprise.
"For the Fool's Mother"--1912, and a pretty decent little Western.
"The Little Door"--1917 and funny, I was about to write "a decent World War II story based on a very stupid premise" when it hit me that it was a World War I story. Felt more II to me. But I guess those Germans just kept invading France. This one had some pretty gross violence in it, too, but at least most of it was offstage.
"Calling All Cars"--1931 crime story. Another twist ending thing. But I didn't really care about this story at all. It just seemed to stumble along from one unlikely event to the next, and then it stopped. Strange, as by the time he wrote this ERB had been at the game for a while and had produced some notable and good works. Must have been an off day.
"Elmer"--1936, and this is the original, no-editor-fucked-with-it version of "The Resurrection of Jimber-Jaw." (Which I have also read--and which is not, contrary to some bibliographies, a novel. Not even a novella.) And even though it had its share of ridiculousness, it was quite enjoyable. Never published in this version previously, and I'm glad that it was included here. (Though I'd also give two snaps up to the published version.)
"The Strange Adventure of Mr. Dinnwiddie"--1940, kind of a Walter Mitty-esque sea cruise story, and surprisingly entertaining. I wonder if this was a case of ERB thinking that readers just wouldn't accept this kind of thing from him, as it is quite out of the Action Adventure stuff he is known for.
"Misogynists Preferred"--1941, and in case the title isn't enough for you to infer, it's not very good. Kind of an ocean going adventure story, but with the war of the sexes twist thrown in. Also seems not to be complete, as it stops at the high point and just has a little tagged on "ending" in summary form.
"Uncle Bill"--1944, kind of a murder mystery, but not really. Not very good, either.
"The Red Necktie"--1932, short--just four pages long, and so forgettable that I had to go back and have another look at it, even though I just read it a day ago. It's really the first Mystery Puzzle story, but since it doesn't feature the character of Inspector Muldoon (as the others all do), I guess it was separated. It suffers from the same things that all of those Mystery Puzzles suffer from: repetitive plot elements, no character development, and incredibly stupid dialogue. Apparently ERB wanted to work out some math puzzle stuff, so characters will answer queries, such as, "How old are you?" (and why on earth would a detective ask that question, anyway?) by saying things like, "I'm half as old as my brother's wife's oldest nephew." And that shit piles up until you can "figure out the murderer." I never cared enough to even try. This story--and all of the ones in the rest of the book which fall under the banner title of "Murder: A Collection of Short Murder Mystery Puzzles"--are just bad. Embarassingly bad. They also account for pages180 to 283, which is 36% of the book, so . . . waitaminute. Actually if you leave out the introduction, the book starts on page 19, so that you really only get 161 pages of other stuff . . . and 9 of those pages are illustrations (not very good ones, unfortunately), so you really only get 152 pages of Not Mystery Puzzle stuff . . . and those pages are not all full . . . and did I mention that the book is on the small side (5 1/2" x 7 3/4") . . . with some generous margins . . . and uses a fairly large font . . . and has headers on every page . . . . Shit, man, this is probably less than 100 pages of real book on the Not Mystery Puzzle end of the stick.
So while I'm not sad to have parted with $60 for my copy, I don't know that it is worth the price. I enjoyed reading it . . . but yeah, I will definitely sell it to you for $700. That's an $80 savings just for you!
Hmmm. I think I'm going to go read The Outlaw of Torn now.
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