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

Entry: The 'Pellucidar' Novels by Edgar Rice Burroughs - A87906757
Author: Bluebottle - U43530

An oft-forgotten series by Edgar Rice Burroughs. I've had help from Gnomon U151503

<BB<

Hi BB, thanks for this. I'm a fan of Edgar Rice Burroughs' writings, particularly the John Carter books. This has passed me by

A few comments:

>>Of course there had been numerous myths, legends and novels about underground worlds written before Burroughs, of which...<<

I think that should be:

Of course there had been numerous myths, legends and novels about underground worlds written prior to Burroughs', of which...



>>Written in September to November 1928, fourteen years after the previous book, this immediately followed by a sequel, Tarzan at the Earth's Core. <<

Try:

Written between September and November 1928, 14 years after the previous book, this was immediately followed by a sequel, Tarzan at the Earth's Core.


Jason Gridley, Tarzan, David Innes, Abner Perry and von Horst are all mentioned as existing on the first two pages of Burrough's first Venus novel, Pirates of Venus (1932).
Footnote 3: Burrough's wrote using a Corona typewriter and this spelt backwards inspired the island's name.
Footnote 5: Apparently named after Burrough's telephone number.
Footnote 9: Perry, the eccentric inventor who builds an out-of-control gas balloon, should not be confused with the mad inventor called Perry, a character in Burrough's novel Pirate Blood (written 1932 and first published posthumously in 1970), who a builds an out-of-control gas balloon.
Burrough's should be Burroughs' in each case.



the earth itself = the Earth itself



Worse still, the mini-sun sitting at the centre of the earth = Earth



You have "sabretooth" and "sabre-tooth"



>>First published serialised in Blue Book, a monthly magazine between March and August 1929, for which Burroughs was paid $7,500, this 78,000-word story was later published as a novel in 1930.<<
You need a comma after "magazine"



I'm interested in the gliding stegosaurus - I must research this.

(Note to self: Remember to copy, preview, then post)

GB

I forgot:

>>who a builds an out-of-control gas balloon.<<

= who builds an out-of-control gas balloon.

But, does he really build an out-of-control gas balloon? Or does he build a gas balloon that goes out of control?

Thanks for the thorough read-through, I've made all the tweaks you've suggested. Sadly the gliding stegosaurus only makes a brief appearance in the series, but it is just such a fascinatingly bizarre yet imaginative idea I had to include it.

<BB<

Oh, apparently the idea had been proposed by an amateur palaeontologist: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/the-fantastic-gliding-stegosaurus-107838636/

<BB<

Imagine the size of the guano...

Stegosaurus flying high
Dropped a coprolite from the sky…

I have been considering writing a couple more entries about Burroughs' books, but if I did they would probably not be in so much detail. (Covering his 'Venus' and Historical novels).

<BB<

"A practical way to avoid this would be to wear velcro-soled shoes, but the downside is that you would have to cover the entire inner surface of Pellucidar with some sort of looped carpet."



Fascinating that Edgar Rice Burroughs described how he learned the stories

"a vast stampede caused by a pack of hundreds of sabretooth tigers hunting" - what animal is stampeding?

"Is the painfully stereotypical portrayal of Robert Jones the airship's cook forgivable?" - how does one stereotype a cook?

Pantaletta sounded intriguing, but is quite the tale of antifeminism, I see...

Footnote 11 is just right - I wondered exactly that about O-aa

"meeting the Old Man whose name is not Dolly Dorcas, a man from the outer world whose whaling vessel, the Dolly Dorcas, fell into Pellucidar through the polar opening many years earlier." - why do you repeat Dolly Dorcas?

You mention the novel written in 1944 and published in 1963 twice - could that be condensed into one mention?

I haven't finished reading yet, but made it up to the Pellucidar's People section...

Edgar Rice Burroughs would indeed describe how he learned the stories, but the introductions were often as imaginative as the actual stories. For example, Burroughs was born in Chicago in 1875 but he tells us he was told the story 'A Princess of Mars' on his Virginia plantation before the American Civil War (1861-5).

What animal is stampeding? Well, pretty much every conceivable animal that isn't a sabretooth tiger...

<BB<

I find the list of different species too repetitive, as we have already met the important ones in the text... The list of main characters is repetitive, too, as you've already described them in the story summary... I see this Entry is more than 5,000 words long, so you don't need to tell us things twice if you can possibly help it - have pity on the reader please A87900302

I didn't understand the paragraph about the damsels in distress very well - they are all damsels in distress, but most of them are not

I don't understand the footnote on other works written at about the same time, either - the book was edited to add 'whitewashing', or to remove some overt racism? should the footnote be somewhere else?

Does the mention of big game follow on from the disturbing sentence about poison gas, or would that sit better higher up?

Very interesting about the Tarzan/Pellucidar crossovers

Edited.

<BB<

Reading this again after having read about the Moon Trilogy

I like the 'unexplained process' paragraph

Is the dinotherium called that on Pellucidsr, or does it have another name too?

" So in At The Earth's Core at one point David Innes and Abney Perry are separated"

Here we don't know what 'At the Earth's Core' is, or who David Innes and Abney Perry are, so this sentence jars... Could just say something like 'So at one point, two ?humans/the main characters are separated. One, Innes, walks... only for the other, Perry, to be...

I also presume it is the book that proclaims that the lack of day and night implies time does not apply!

"However the people of Pellucidar were uninterested in measuring time and so one of Inne's early edicts as Emperor was to officially abolish time." - I don't see how this caused Innes' mind to change from thinking time was important to proclaiming it didn't exist...
I think the Land that Time Forgot section could be merged with the Time section to help with that

"Sadly Gilaks are extremely tribal." - uh oh - this sentence would be better without the 'sadly' as it doesn't make sense on its own, and we see the impact of the tribal nature in the next sentence anyway

The science section shows off Burroughs' ability to mix ideas up - fascinating concept to imagine a superheated core made of gas...

" As only females are born they reproduce artificially using what is called 'the Great Secret'." -

"Having webbed feet are also aquatic." - ?

"They can hypnotically control the minds of humans, which they use to eat human flesh." - ? I think you mention telepathy three times in this paragraph, so I hope rewording will clarify what's what here.

"This was Amicus Productions' penultimate film." - is this sentence needed? You haven't mentioned Amicus before

"this was immediately followed by a sequel, Tarzan at the Earth's Core." - you don't need this because you mention that Tarzan at the Earth's core is the sequel later.

What are Korsars and Cids?

"his experimenter neighbour" - this sounds strange - is it 'his neighbour, inventor"

"Jason the only one to return to the airship. After trying to search for the others using a scout plane, the aircraft is destroyed by a pteranodon" - Jason gets a scout plane out of the airship and the plane is destroyed?

Footnote 7 is perhaps not as clear as it could be - perhaps it is giving too much information as the two books in one volume aren't discussed here?

"1942, before Land of Terror was first published" - you don't need this because you've already described Land of Terror's publication in 1944. The paragraph is heavy going as you've got 'these' and 'this' being different things, and Burroughs didn't actually publish Savage Pellucidar so it is confusing...

I still don't understand the footnote on other works written at about the same time - is it confirming the book was edited to add 'whitewashing'?

Thanks for the re-read, I've made some changes to this entry to address the points you have made.

<BB<

I spotted Abney instead of Abner

"Lacking any perception of sound, they" - the Mahars

"Captured by the Mahars' gorilla-like servants called the Sagoths, they" - Perry and Innes

I read footnote 14 now as saying it would be unacceptably racist or sexist to include a black character... Or was it that the editor in 1963 deemed it the best way to avoid the offensive stereotype would be to encourage readers to assume the character was white?

Thanks, I've made those two tweaks. I've also changed that footnote –I'm not sure exactly what the editor thought had been achieved overall, as the character with the smiling face still talks in pidgin English. Personally if I was trying to eliminate all traces of racism I'd be more concerned about the dialogue – the words and thoughts put into his mouth – than his smile.

<BB<

Excellent, thanks! Yes, it is a strange edit - perhaps exchanges overt racism for whitewashed disablism in order to be deemed more acceptable at the time... Footnote 14 encapsulates the issue well, though

Your Guide Entry has just been picked from Peer Review by one of our Scouts, and is now heading off into the Editorial Process, which ends with publication in the Edited Guide. We've moved this Review Conversation out of Peer Review and to the entry itself.

If you'd like to know what happens now, check out the page on 'What Happens after your Entry has been Recommended?' at EditedGuide-Process. We hope this explains everything.

Thanks for contributing to the Edited Guide!

Thanks for your help, Gnomon

<BB<

Congratulations!

I found out what Amicus Productions is just now!

"I read one on British cinema in the 1970s, which had a fascinating chapter on Amicus' adaptations of Edgar Rice Burroughs novels, which I enjoyed reading so much that I thought I'd find and read some of my Edgar Rice Burroughs novels…"

This information is hidden quite deep in h2g2, though, so a little more detail in this Entry will put the relevant sentence into context Amicus is mentioned to good effect here A83345132