Book Review: VICTORY HARBEN TALES FROM THE VOID

TITLE: Victory Harben: Tales from the Void

EDITOR: Christopher Paul Carey

436 pages, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc., ISBN 9781945462665 (paperback, hardcover, hardcover collector’s edition)

MY RATING:  5 stars out of 5

Victory Harben: Tales from the Void brings together under one cover the novellas featuring Victory Harben and her friends that appeared in the back of the novels that made up Edgar Rice Burroughs Inc.’s “Swords of Eternity Super-Arc” between 2020 and 2022, accompanied by a new novella seeing publication for the first time herein as well as interstitial first-person narration by the titular character that ties everything together.

A short bit of background, for those not familiar: When Edgar Rice Burroughs Inc. decided to launch a new series of canonical adventures of ERB’s famous (and not-so-famous) creations, they also decided to expand the canon with new characters tied to the classic ERB canon. Victory Harben is one of those characters: her mother, Gretchen Von Harben, first appeared in Tarzan and the Tarzan Twins; her uncle and grandfather first appeared in Tarzan and the Lost Empire; her father, Nadoc, is a denizen of Pellucidar; and her godfather, Jason Gridley, appeared in Tazan at the Earth’s Core, Back to the Stone Age, A Fighting Man of Mars, and Pirates of Venus, making him one of the first characters to appear in multiple ERB series. In fact, the “Swords of Eternity Super-Arc” kicks off with Gridley and Victory trying to solve a problem with the Gridley Wave, which allows for communication between Earth, Pellucidar, Mars and elsewhere, and being plunged (separately) into an unpredictable journey through time and space.

So this book was largely a “re-read” for me, of novellas I’d already encountered in other ERB books – but this time presented in the main character’s chronological order. It was fun revisiting these stories and seeing how they fit together. It’s a credit to the authors (Christopher Paul Carey, Mike Wolfer, Geary Gravel, and Ann Tonsor Zeddies) that each novella is eminently readable on its own – other than the question of “where will Victory (or Jason) go next?” there are no cliffhangers. Each novella has a solid beginning, middle, and end with all major plot points resolved.

As I have reviewed most of the novellas when I reviewed the novels with which they originally appeared (HERE, HERE, and HERE), I will concentrate the rest of this review on the new novella included herein, “Victory Harben and the Lord of the Veiled Eye,” written by Christopher Paul Carey (who also created Victory Harben and most of her supporting cast). The novella takes place after Victory has found a way to “force” her interstellar jumps (rather than waiting helplessly for them to happen), so perhaps a bit more than halfway into her timeline and introduces us to another new Burroughsian interplanetary society: one lead by a ruthless leader (the titular Lord of the Veiled Eye), a conqueror of planets and decimator of societies. Victory quickly finds herself, as usual, in a situation in which she does not have all the facts but must act on her instincts to discern good guys from bad guys and how to help. In addition to an intriguing new villain I suspect we have not heard the last of, Carey also introduces another strong woman (in the ERB tradition) with Axia of Ptarxes, a world coming under control of the Lord. The novella alternates thrilling action sequences with thoughtful ruminations on the nature of despots and the way they absorb and/or destroy native cultures.

If you’re not familiar with the extended Edgar Rice Burrough Universe and would like to get a good sense of its depth and breadth, Victory Harben: Tales from the Void is a great starter, as between Victory and Jason and another character, you get to experience more than one part of that universe: Pellucidar (the hollow Earth), Caspak (the land that time forgot), Va-Nah (the world inside the moon), the moons of Barsoom (Mars), and more. And you get to see the distinctive styles of several (but not all) of the authors currently expanding the ERBU.

I received an advance reading pdf of this book for free from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review. Victory Harben: Tales from the Void is currently up for pre-order on the Edgar Rice Burroughs Inc. website.

SERIES SATURDAY: Pellucidar: Across Savage Seas

This is a blog series about … well, series. I love stories that continue across volumes, in whatever form: linked short stories, novels, novellas, television, movies, comics. It’s been on hiatus for a while, but returns this week with the first of two posts about new content from Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc.

Pellucidar: Across Savage Seas,

Publisher: American Mythology, 2022 (in conjunction with Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc.)

Story: Christopher Paul Carey

Writer/Editor: Mike Wolfer

Pencils and Inks: Miriana Puglia

Colors: Periya Pillai

Letters: Natalie Jane

In Pellucidar: Across Savage Seas, Gretchen von Harben (all grown up her from last appearance as a twelve-year-old girl in Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Tarzan and the Tarzan Twins) narrates to an unseen audience her first visit to Pellucidar, the hidden world at the Earth’s core. Accompanying adventurer Jason Gridley on the airship Favonia as a college student, Gretchen is knocked loose when the Favonia is attacked by a flock of pterosaurs. She parachutes to a remote, uncharted island with only a pistol and limited ammo. There she encounters beings fans of the Pellucidar books will recognize (human Gilaks and ape-like Sagoths) as well as entirely new races that this series adds to the official Burroughs canon (Kratalaks and Azlaks). Gretchen faces a lot of peril over the course of four issues, and in the tradition of the strong female Burroughs characters who have preceded her (Jane Porter-Clayton, Dejah Thoris, Duare, and more), she more than rises to the occasion. This may be Gretchen’s first recorded adventure as an adult, but I certainly hope it’s not the last. She’s an engaging and dynamic character who deserves to be featured (along with the supporting cast that’s been built around her) in many more stories.

Christopher Paul Carey crafted the general story of Gretchen’s first adventure in Pellucidar, originally intending it to be a novel. Writer Mike Wolfer did a wonderful job converting the story to comic book form, pacing the story perfectly across four issues. Fewer issues would have rushed the story too much, and I think five or six issues would have padded the story out too much. Reading the series as it was issued in monthly (or as close to monthly as the publisher could get given various supply chain issues plaguing small independent publishers these days), I was very satisfied with where each issue left off – cliffhangers, of course, as befits a story that could easily have been told as a classic 1940s movie serial – and never felt like the drama of the end of a chapter was unearned. Carey is a Burroughsian scholar of the highest level, and Wolfer matches him well in creating a story that Burroughs would be proud of. For instance, I have no idea how much of the dialogue was in Carey’s original plot, how much the writers crafted together, and how much is purely Wolfer – but regardless, each character’s voice is distinctive and clear while still being perfectly Burroughsian in style.

Complimenting the writing, Miriana Puglia’s artwork is wonderful. Her clean lines and fluid body language convey action and emotion with equal clarity. Fight scenes have a flow and symmetry that makes them easy to follow, and upon multiple reads tiny details stand out. And when it’s time to go creepy (as one almost inevitably must when adventuring in Pellucidar), Puglia absolutely rises to the occasion. There’s one particular page in issue 4, for example, which made me a bit nauseous (trust me, this is a compliment.). Colorist Periya Pillai keeps the action well-lit with a mix of bold and quiet colors as appropriate to the scene; even moments in dark caves or underwater are easy to follow because Pillai’s colors don’t go so dark that they subsume Puglia’s art.

In recent years, Edgar Rice Burroughs Inc. has made a concerted effort to expand the official canon of the ERB Universe with new novels and comics series like this one, that bear the “Edgar Rice Burroughs Universe” banner across the top of the cover as well as an “Official ERB Universe Canon” stamp and hew as closely to Burroughs’ original interconnectedness universe as possible. In the novels of the current “Swords of Eternity” Super-Arc, readers have been introduced to an intrepid young woman traversing time and space named Victory Harben. Yes, there’s a direct connection between the Gretchen von Harben of Pellucidar: Across Savage Seas and the Victory Harben who has been appearing in those novels: it’s not a spoiler to reveal here that Victory is Gretchen’s daughter and is the person to whom Gretchen is narrating this story. Along with appearing in the novels/novellas already released, Victory will take center stage in her own novel later this year – but before that, she’s also been the star of another American Mythology / ERB Universe comic book mini-series: Beyond the Farthest Star: Warriors of Zandar, which will be the subject of next week’s Series Saturday post.

Review of TARZAN: BATTLE FOR PELLUCIDAR

TITLE: Tarzan: Battle for Pellucidar (Swords of Eternity Super-Arc #2, Edgar Rice Burroughs Universe)

AUTHOR: Win Scott Eckert

312 pages, Edgar Rice Burroughs Inc., ISBN 978194562269 (paperback, hardcover, limited hardcover, ebook)

DESCRIPTION: (from Goodreads): Tarzan of the Apes, Jason Gridley, and the crew of the airship O-220 return to Pellucidar, the world at the Earth’s core, on a wartime mission to stop the Nazis from obtaining a powerful superweapon. But when the Lord of the Jungle’s murderous adversaries partner with the Mahars—Pellucidar’s routed reptilian overlords—and his adventurous granddaughter Suzanne goes missing on a reconnaissance mission, can Tarzan prevent the conquest and enslavement of all humanity in both the inner and outer worlds? 

Bonus Novelette: “Victory Harben: Clash on Caspak” by Mike Wolfer: Hurled through time and space from her homeworld of Pellucidar, Victory Harben plummets into peril when she finds herself on the island continent of Caspak, the Land That Time Forgot. Using skills learned from her friend Tarzan and the Stone Age land of her birth, Victory fights for her very survival against savage beasts and uncanny Wieroos, the winged humanoid terrors of Caspak. But that is only the beginning of her trials, as a strange visitor arrives with an omen of Victory’s role in the machinations of the Swords of Eternity super-arc!

MY RATING: 5 out of 5 stars

MY THOUGHTS:

Note: I reviewed this book via an electronic Advance Review Copy. The book will be published in October by Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc.

Edgar Rice Burroughs wrote 24 Tarzan novels (25 if we include Tarzan and the Tarzan Twins, which would now be considered a “middle grade” novel, I think, or 26 if we include Tarzan: The Lost Adventure, which Joe Lansdale completed from a manuscript started by Burroughs), and six Pellucidar novels. Burroughs virtually created the idea of fictional universes, linking his various series in ever-inventive ways to create a consistent whole. (See for instance the novel Tarzan at the Earth’s Core, in which the Jungle Lord visits the Hollow Earth for the first time.) Over the years since Burroughs’ passing, the Burroughs Estate has “authorized” quite a lot of novels featuring Tarzan, John Carter, Carson Napier, and other Burroughs creations. But only recently has the estate, through Edgar Rice Burroughs Inc., decided to issue new works tied intimately enough to the detailed chronology and characterizations of the original books to be considered “canonical” (as compared to merely “authorized.”)

So how does one approach reading a new canonical novel that once again ties two of Burroughs’ most well-known series together, especially if that book is also the second title in a new “super-arc” connecting even more of Burroughs’ original creations? Must one read all of the Tarzan and Pellucidar novels before opening the cover of Win Scott Eckert’s Tarzan: Battle for Pellucidar?

I am happy to report the answer to that question is “no.” I have read only a small handful of the original Tarzan novels and none of the Pellucidar series. Tarzan at the Earth’s Core is not one of the handful of Tarzan novels I have read. Despite these holes in my Burroughsian reading history, I loved this book and was fully engaged with the characters and plot throughout.

Win Scott Eckert has not only crafted a novel that is true to the character of Tarzan as detailed by Burroughs in the original novels (versus what we see in most movie/television versions), he’s given us a novel that is an excellent jumping-on point for readers who are new to Tarzan, to Pellucidar, or to both. There was not a moment in this book where I felt like I was missing out on vital information by not having read the originals. And even though this is the second book in the new Edgar Rice Burroughs Universe “Swords of Eternity super-arc,” one does not have to have read the preceding release (Carson of Venus: The Edge of All Worlds, written by Matt Betts) to jump into this one. Like Burroughs himself, the new ERBU writers are working hard to make every book accessible on its own. Eckert does this by having characters reminisce about previous exploits in just enough detail to fill new readers in without derailing the momentum of the current story, supplemented by footnotes letting the reader know where to go to read the original stories.

Eckert gives us the Tarzan I remember from the few novels I’ve read and from the DC and Marvel comics of the late 70s: imposing, multi-lingual, a strategist when called for and a brute force when appropriate, a man who loves his family and will do anything to protect them, a man who can fit with “polite society” but who always has “the beast” simmering under the surface. Here, he is the focal point around whom everything else orbits, the most compelling character in a cast of compelling characters. The best Tarzan writers understand how to use the Jungle Lord’s personal dichotomies to propel a story, and Eckert proves here that he is among the best.

Eckert also does a wonderful job incorporating the setting of Pellucidar into the novel almost as another character. I’m intrigued by the way time does/doesn’t move in the “hollow Earth,” and how the landscape and stationary sun and moon influence the way characters think and react. I really cannot wait to go back and read the Burroughs originals as well as the soon-to-be-rereleased (by ERB, Inc.) authorized sequels by John Eric Holmes, and all credit for that goes to Win Eckert. (Okay, perhaps a little bit of credit should also go to Mike Grell, whose hidden world of Skartaris in DC Comics’ The Warlord was my first and most beloved exposure to the “hollow Earth” concept and which was clearly inspired by Pellucidar.)

Tarzan: Battle for Pellucidar is also as fast-paced as one would expect from a Burroughs novel. There’s a bit of slow set-up in the first few chapters as Eckert moves all of his chess pieces into place, but after that the action is pretty much non-stop. As with Burroughs, Eckert expresses characterization as much through action as through internal monologue. I read the second half of the book in one sitting. Burroughs wrote several books in which Tarzan and Korak fight in World War One, so it’s a natural extension of the brand that a still fighting-fit Lord John Clayton and his family members would be tapped to help protect England from the Nazi menace of the Second World War. Especially when the Nazis are on the verge of discovering Pellucidar and the mind-controlling abilities of the native Mahars.

Much has been made of the “Swords of Eternity” super-arc introducing a new lead character, Victory Harben, into the ERBU. In Tarzan: Battle for Pellucidar, we get to see Victory at a much younger age and see the experience that transforms her life and brings her under the care of Tarzan and Jane in England. But Victory isn’t the only “next generation” character being added to Burroughs’ family trees. In Tarzan: Battle for Pellucidar, Eckert introduces us to Suzanne Clayton (Tarzan’s grand-daughter, the second child of Tarzan’s son Korak and daughter-in-law Meriem) and to Janson Gridley (son of Jason Gridley and Pellucidarian native Jana). Suzanne follows closely in her father’s and grandfather’s footsteps, plunging into adventure without so much as a backwards glance, equally at home in the jungle as in a city. Janson doesn’t see much action but I loved the almost-sibling interplay between him and Victory (who is Jason Gridley’s god-daughter). I hope that as the new ERBU progresses, we’ll see more of both of these younger characters alongside Victory and Korak and Meriem’s son Jackie Clayton. While it has been well-established by Burroughs himself that Tarzan and his immediate family are very long-lived and essentially immortal (something the Jungle Lord ruminates about a lot in this book, which takes place during World War II), injecting new characters into the ERBU also follows Burroughs’ own tradition.

The main novel is followed by a bonus novelette, “Clash on Caspak,” which connects the current super-arc to yet another of Burroughs’ original on-going series: “The Land That Time Forgot.” I’ve never read the Caspak books, although I remember the movies based on them. Mike Wolfer does a great job relaying what makes Caspak similar to and yet unique from Pellucidar through Victory Harben’s eyes. The novelette advances Victory’s storyline that started in Christopher Paul Carey’s novelette “Dark Heart of the Sun,” giving us more hints about why Victory is being bounced through time and space and what role her mysterious tattoo might play. As I may have mentioned, I find Victory an intriguing character and can’t wait for her to star in her own novel (titled Fires of Halos and due out sometime in 2021, I believe).