Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #720404 in Books
• Published on: 2007-04-02
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 236 pages

Synopsis
THE LAND THAT TIME FORGOT While matching wits and blows with a crew of Germans aboard a WWI U-33 submarine, Bowen Tyler, his loyal dog, Nobs, the stunning Lys, and a group of tough Brits become hopelessly lost on the Pacific thanks to an act of sabotage. But soon after land is sighted all hope is crushed. Long lost to the outside world, the land they have discovered-Caspak-teems with prehistoric monsters, and men of every epoch...and they're hungry. THE PEOPLE THAT TIME FORGOT Tom Billings, close friend to Bowen Tyler, sets out on a rescue mission. Having found Tyler's bottled note floating in the ocean, Billings is familiar with the dangers of Caspak, but knowledge and experience are not the same. Billings quickly finds himself alone in the land of dinosaurs and ape-men, on the run and accompanied by a beautiful Caspak native-Ajor. OUT OF TIME'S ABYSS Bradley, one of the surviving Brits from Bowen Tyler's crew, sets off into the interior of Caspak in search of Billings and a way home to England. He cuts a path through the sinewy jungle and emerges at the heart of Caspak, where he uncovers the horrible secret-a race of hideous creatures that are beyond scientific classification...beyond all imagining.

Customer Reviews

Monstrously Good Fun!
A REVIEW OF 'THE LAND THAT TIME FORGOT' BY EDGAR RICE BURROUGHS

Although today, Edgar Rice Burroughs is best remembered for his Tarzan stories, 'The Land That Time Forgot' (TLTTF) is nevertheless a well-known adventure tale which has spawned a choice of Hollywood adaptations. It is not hard to understand why. The novel is a fast-paced, ripping yarn, packed full of adventure on and under the high seas, before the action heads off to the title's location.

Superficially, TLTTF is a close cousin of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's, 'The Lost World'. Both books centre around the perils of being trapped on a desolate island, inhabited by an alarming combination of time-defying dinosaurs and ape men. Of the two, 'The Lost World' is arguably the more satisfying novel, with its greater depth and focus upon characterisation, including some much-needed humour amid the chaos. However, what TLTTF lacks in subtlety is almost compensated for in energy, combining the excitement and danger of German U-boat operations with gung-ho science fiction. Burroughs also throws in romance and a damsel-in-distress, a feature lacking in 'The Lost World'.

The opening passages deal with the hero, American Bowen J. Taylor's, imprisonment upon an enemy submarine. The fact that book is set in 1916 (the year before the USA joined The Great War on the side of the Allies) adds some genuine tension between the novel's hero and the unscrupulous German commander, Von Schoenvorts. There is a claustrophobic feel to the action, as control of the vessel swings from one side to another. Published in 1924, it is clear where Burroughs' sympathies still lay six years after the conflict ended. Indeed the fact that the most graphic account of a dinosaur's victim revolves around a German crew member being eaten alive was surely no coincidence!

The need to land on Caspak (the name of the book's lost world) is cleverly explained. However, the description of the landscape and its various inhabitants is arguably a little brusque. Burroughs skirts over some of the more interesting features of the environment, as if to admit that, "Doyle did this twelve years ago, so I'll stick with the action." This is a shame, because a clearer picture of the beasts and the geography of Caspak would have added more depth to the story and made the omnipotent danger more tangible.

Some of the tale's brevity can be accounted for by the fact that TLTTF is part one of a trilogy of books centred on Caspak. Because of this, the ending is both poignant and teasing. The finale is very cinematic, and it is not hard to imagine a extended final zoom-out shot and "Bowen J. Taylor Will Return In 'The People That Time Forgot'" writ large on the screen. With this in mind, it is difficult to argue with the fact that TLTTF does its double job of entertaining and leaving the reader wanting more rather well... 7/10

Deserves not to be forgotten
First, if you are going to buy The Land That Time Forgot, you need to get either the special edition including The People That Time Forgot and Out of Time's Abyss or the same as the `Caspak Trilogy'. They are three chapters of the same story; buying only the `Land` will leave you missing the middle part and the end.

Now, Burroughs's mini-trilogy admittedly isn't grown-up literature. This is an adventure novel; this is fantasy. Nor is it a psychologically credible work say, as some science-fiction might be: the goodies are pure goodies, and the baddies don't have an ounce of humanity in them. The monsters are agglomerations of tooth and claw of gigantic proportions, the hero all derring-do, self-sacrifice, and gentlemanliness, and even the dog plays its faithful bit-role. Yet such naiveté is, precisely, touching. The Land That Time Forgot is full of nostalgia.

It also works because Burroughs was able to marshal his considerable imagination into a coherent universe. This is the story of wartime sailors who, taken prisoner aboard a German U-boat, end up on an island stuck in prehistoric times. But there is more to the mysterious world, from one end of which to the other evolution seems to have accelerated. The real, artfully constructed mystery is what makes the `Land' tick and its many tribes from ape to human, all after a secret they believe our protagonists have mastered. Burrough makes the incredible credible, or at least admissible; and this, in turn, makes for scenes of memorable suspense and beauty. There is, for example, the flight over the mud roofs of the Wieroo city, or the scene in which the hero, Bradley, confronts their flesh-eating god-king armed with no more than a concealed knife. Nor does this lack romance, of the modest, terribly decent type, of course. But this is how Burroughs summarised it: `It was my custom as a child, and in fact it has been all my life, to day-dream romantic stories filled with action and adventure. Many of my written stories are based upon these.'

The Land that Time Forgot
Quality compilation of Edgar Rice Burroughs stories. Excellent purchase if this is your genre! AAA+ seller.