h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: The Caspak Trilogy that Time Forgot by Edgar Rice Burroughs - A87921985
Author: Bluebottle - U43530

A Trilogy Often Forgot.

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Interesting - I know of 'The Land that Time Forgot' and didn't realise it was by the author of Tarzan

"Caproni never learnt that it was called Caspak by the island's inhabitants." - And Caspak never learnt that it was called Caprona by the island's 'discoverer'!

There's a bit of repetition eg of 'impenetrable cliffs' that might be able to be condensed somehow

"Caspak is the remains of a giant crater " - Caspak is the remains of a volcano?

"the northernmost is the island of Oo-oh" - Ooo!

The casual mention of dinosaurs took me by surprise! How did they happen to be there, do you know?

"Seemingly to make up for the fact that no princess appears in the whole of the first novel in the trilogy" - you might need a footnote here in case this is the first Entry about Burroughs that someone reads.

The Peoples of Caspak section is disturbingly fascinating - what a concept...

"While you might think that having to kidnap human women to be able to breed would seriously limit their population, the obverse seems to be true." - does this mean there are loads of them so they can happily murder each other without being at risk of extinction?

The Pseudo-science that Time Forgot section is very good - sets the tales in context well

Thanks for your comments, I've made some changes. So, did you know of 'The Land that Time Forgot' from the classic film?

Oo-oh does seem a typical Burroughs name, later having a character called O-aa in his Pellucidar books.

'The casual mention of dinosaurs took me by surprise! How did they happen to be there, do you know?'
Time forgot them

'Does this mean there are loads of them so they can happily murder each other without being at risk of extinction?'
- That's what the novel implies, which doesn't make sense when they can't breed directly without first kidnapping women of another species. Particularly as they are fussy which women they capture, preferring to kidnap the rare 'not egg women' rather than 'up from the beginning' women who, because their parents know whose daughters they are, are actually defended and cared for more than 'up from the beginning' women.
I can only speculate that the reason for the Weiroo's surplus population is due to immortality, it usually is in a Burroughs novel. If the murdering only applies to Weiroo and women aren't murdered and the women remain at a child-bearing age for decades rather than years after being captured then just maybe there could be a large enough Weiroo population for them to spend all their time murdering each other…?

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I haven't seen 'The Land That Time Forgot' but it is mentioned in the book I'm reading at the moment, about fictional explorers and fictional archaeology

Ah – which leads us to the question, 'what book are you reading?' Has it raised any points that this hasn't mentioned?

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This is a nice analysis.

>>The trilogy again shows Burroughs' view of hereditary,<<

I think you meant 'heredity'.

Good spot, I've changed that to King Herod now.

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I'm reading 'Digging Holes in Popular Culture', which contains one of the last pieces Douglas Adams wrote.

It has made only passing reference to 'The Land That Time Forgot', but that was interesting in the context of the other books and films that you mention, about prehistory being alive and being discovered by explorer archaeologists

On the hunt for linkies to A87930165 I'm just reading this again thoroughly

In the first sentence I don't think you need the second '20th Century'. There is repetition of 'successful', 'magazines' and 'trilogy' so I wonder if the first two paragraphs can be tightened up to make the introduction even stronger. Caspak is described as a continent and an island?

I searched for evidence to support the sentence "20th Century Britain's most adored female impersonator, Danny La Rue" and found it on a website advertising the Costa Del Sol

"an English tug" - tugboat?

That's impressively coincidental that the captain of the submarine in the second attack is the fiancé

Why are all nine of the tug's crew named here while the nine prisoners are not? Could that be condensed so you can mention the tug crew when they are introduced later?

The description of the Island of Caspak is repetitive too - 'giant', 'volcano', 'warm'.

"curiously no prehistoric animal known to be unique to the southern hemisphere is listed, although presumably the list of animals is limited to what the various narrators can identify." - is this saying that Burroughs should have known that there are animals unique to the southern hemisphere that he could have chosen?

"A ship is sent to Caspak along with a one-man aircraft to fly over the pinnacles surrounding the island that is piloted by Billings." - needs a tweak to clarify that Billings piloted the aircraft.

So there are three different narrators in the sense that there is a narrator who reads Tyler's words and then the narrator hands the story to Billings and then the narrator actually narrates the third instalment?

Burroughs was writing before the discovery of the role of DNA in heredity, but what about the role of genes?

The Entry ends on rather a sad note, but it is a good link to other work.

Thanks for another thorough re-read.

I've reworded the opening paragraphs and also added a footnote to explain that Burroughs does indeed describe Caspak as both a continent and island interchangeably throughout. Consistency was never really one of his strong points, which is odd as repetition was definitely one of his weaknesses.

Okay, with regards Danny La Rue OBE being the most adored, admittedly 'adoration' isn't exactly something that can be scientifically measured. I admit to being biased as I used to see him quite regularly over a period of a couple of years up until his death. However the fact that he was one of the most high profile female impersonators in Britain of the 20th Century and he was one of Britain's highest paid entertainers in the 1960s. I can think of only two potential rivals in his class, first of whom being Barry 'Dame Edna' Humphreys, who is Australian. Second perhaps is Lilly Savage, who had a brief career for a few years in the 1990s before Paul O'Grady retired the character in order to develop radio's most monotonous voice and pursue his ambition to only ever talk about one subject. Danny La Rue's career lasted decades, I believe his career stretched from the 1940s until 2010 - he was also in a few films as well as 'Mr Bean' and appeared as a character in drama 'Cilla'.

"an English tug" - tugboat?
No, tug. In my 1984 Midland Bank Griffin Savers Oxford Dictionary 'tug n.' is defined as '2. A small powerful boat for towing others'. The word 'tugboat' does not appear in the dictionary; I suspect it is an Americanism.
I confess that when I had my first bank account opened for me at the age of 4 I didn't appreciate getting a free dictionary, but it is a very good dictionary that has come in very handy over the years when writing crosswords etc. It is a proper dictionary, you understand, complete with antidisestablishmentarianism and floccinaucinihilipilification. Not a 'A is for , B is for , C is for ' thing. Sadly the book has outlasted the bank, which is now a trendy wine bar. It isn't my only dictionary, obviously, but you never forget your first.

'That's impressively coincidental that the captain of the submarine in the second attack is the fiancé' – Ah, but Burroughs had to make up for the lack of coincidentally bumping into a princess in the first novel somehow.

Sadly the Germans are never really given individual identities, merely described as 'a German did this, another German did that' but I have added the names I can find.

When writing this, Burroughs chose prehistoric animals that he had heard of – particularly prehistoric animals native to North America. Yet in prehistoric times as today different parts of the world have different ecosystems and different native animals. Burroughs isn't the only one to assume that any prehistoric world would automatically have a Tyrannosaurus rex because that's the most famous dinosaur, but they weren't as widespread a species as their fame would suggest. There are prehistoric animals native to the Southern Hemisphere, but they have been largely forgotten as they don't have PR in Hollywood…

I've clarified that Billings piloted the aircraft – I wish that Burroughs had clarified that. That section really is difficult to read as it suddenly switches from being from the perspective of the unnamed narrator on the ship who describes Billings' flight as being 'two weeks ago' to Billings piloting the aeroplane.
Mind you, on the opening page of 'The Land that Time Forgot' who is narrating the story changes after the first and fourth paragraphs to make it Tyler-Narrator-Tyler telling the story without any indication as to who is saying what why, making it confusing on first reading.

In the trilogy there is the unidentified narrator who finds Tyler's journal (the narrator of the first book) who may well be the unidentified narrator who hands it to Billings (the narrator of the second book) and Bradley's adventures of the third book are narrated. Everyone is reunited at the end of Bradley's adventure on the deck of the Toreador, the rescue ship that brought the aircraft – but the unidentified narrator (either the same person in the first two books or at least the narrator of opening chapter of the second) – he who mounted the rescue expedition that Billings participated in - is not mentioned. Ah well, he can't be important as he didn't defeat a baddy or get a girl.

I've rearranged the paragraphs at the end so it is hopefully less sad.

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Thinking about it, I still not only have that account open – and I still have my first cheque book. So is a cheque written on a Midland Bank cheque that has the date printed with the date '19___' top right and the Midland Bank logo on and the address of a building no longer a bank still valid, when the account number and sortcode is still the same?

(Formed in 1836, Midland Bank was taken over by HSBC – Highly Suspect Banking Corporation – in 1992)

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Superbly updated introduction

Yes, Danny La Rue's long and varied career is testament to how much audiences loved him Lily Savage suited a monotonous voice because of her character, but it's definitely not an ideal radio voice... I enjoyed Hinge & Bracket's television show very much, but their career trajectory was also different from Danny La Rue's

"It isn't my only dictionary, obviously, but you never forget your first."

No indeed My Concise Oxford defines 'Tug' as '2. To move by means of a tugboat', though, so that's why I asked!

"That's impressively coincidental that the captain of the submarine in the second attack is the fiancé' – Ah, but Burroughs had to make up for the lack of coincidentally bumping into a princess in the first novel somehow." Aha, yes

"who is narrating the story changes after the first and fourth paragraphs" - Wow, no wonder it is confusing... The mention of 'the third person rather than the first person' helps

Excellent mention of Mendel

'umbrage' is a good word, but I seem to recall you previously had a word there that was more matter-of-fact, or did I imagine that?

I think the footnote about Star Wars needs a little bit more in it - there are various claims for the inspiration behind Star Wars...

Thanks for tweaking the ending - much better to end on discussion of the links with other works

That is an excellent question - I have one of those cheque books, too, but I was sent a new one by HSBC so I used that instead (after a number of times of having to cross out the 19 on the old ones). The account number and sort code are the main things indeed, though, so theoretically there should be no problem

Can't have been HSBC that I needed to cross out the 19 on, sorry - must have been Barclays.

"Did you imagine that I used a word other than 'umbrage' ?"
Possibly – I can't say one way or another, this has been edited and re-written a few times so there's every chance that I might have previously said 'dislike' or something. If it gets changed I won't be upset but it does seem that Burroughs found the very existence of trades union personally offensive.

As for 'Star Wars', I said 'heavily inspired', which is true. Inspiration comes from many sources and whole books can and have been written about the various ones behind 'Star Wars'. So R2-D2's name was inspired by film canister Reel 2 Dialogue 2, C-3PO's appearance was inspired by Maria in 'Metropolis', the shape of the 'Millennium Falcon' by a , the C-3PO/R2 relationship inspired by Akira Kurosawa film 'The Hidden Fortress' and the events inspired by 'The Hero's Journey'. 'The Dam Busters' inspired the attack on the Death Star – back in the good old days when pounds were round and YouTube liked me there were various videos you could watch where they put the soundtrack from 'Star Wars' on the picture from 'The Dam Busters' (and '633 Squadron') and vice versa.

'Star Wars' is indeed heavily inspired by the 'Barsoom' books – the desert, arid landscape, the various aliens, the fact there are both swords and ray-guns and space-western genre. And the fact that there is only one woman in the entire universe and she's a princess – that's pure Burroughs. 'Flash Gordon' was another chief inspiration - the scrolling text and wipes from one scene to the next were nicked from the old serials. But what inspired 'Flash Gordon'? Yep, Edgar Rice Burroughs.

As that's all a bit much to fit into a I tweaked it slightly to also say 'among other sources'.

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Ah, 'dislike' rings a bell - 'umbrage' just gave me the impression that there was a specific incident that caused the feeling of personal offence, whereas 'dislike' gave the impression that the feeling of personal offence had arisen in a more general way from a variety of sources.

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