The Writing Life: Remembering Pellucidar
Tarzan creator’s ‘hollow Earth’ world still stirs the imagination
Edgar Rice Burroughs created some of the most memorable fantasy worlds in literature, from the familiar African jungles of Tarzan to the barren lost civilization of Barsoom in his John Carter of Mars series.
There were more, though: The misty oceanic world of Amtor in the Carson of Venus series, the island of Caprona from “The Land That Time Forgot” trilogy, and the Medieval England of perhaps his best novel, “The Outlaw of Torn.”
My favorite, in terms of the pure audaciousness of the concept, is Pellucidar — the hollow Earth with a tiny mini-star at the planet’s core providing a never-ending noontime for the life on this planet within a planet.
While the story lines in his seven Pellucidar novels are stock Burroughs — corrupted modern men facing uncivilized, primitive cave men whose blunt honesty shames their 20th century visitors — the setting is unrivaled.
Reading these books as a youth swept me away into Burroughs’ imaginary worlds, and while re-reading them as an adult has been a bit of a disappointment, the vision of an eternally sunlit hollow Earth existing below our feet remains ever beguiling.
I often wonder that no one has attempted to make a modern Pellucidar film. With current CGI techniques, you could create the illusion of a hollow planet where there is no horizon, instead the vistas rising above you in all directions, to fade out in the haze of the atmosphere.
The only one made so far, “At The Earth’s Core” (1976) has the cheesiest of special effects (think the Saturday morning series of the same era, “Land of the Lost”) with everything set in underground caverns (probably to avoid trying to capture the panoramic views from inside a hollow planet).
But then I think of recent attempts to put Burroughs to film — Disney’s abomination of a John Carter film, or the nearly as flat Tarzan animation — and think, well, maybe it’s better they not try. At least not Disney.
The books, though, can still be found, although I don’t know how many are still in print. (The copyright is still in force, which is ridiculous.)
In order they are:
“At the Earth's Core” (1914)
“Pellucidar” (1915)
“Tanar of Pellucidar” (1929)
“Tarzan at the Earth's Core “ (1929-1930)’
“Back to the Stone Age” (1937)
“Land of Terror” (1944)
“Savage Pellucidar” (1963)
As I mentioned recently in the Notes section and Chat here on Substack, I’ve been fairly busy with magazine work of late, thus the relatively few posts here.
On May 1, I had two feature interview with musicians published:
San Diego jazz singer Allison Adams Tucker in San Diego Troubadour talking about her new album in which she covers pop songs from different decades.
San Diego blues singer and guitarist Bill Magee in Living Blues (no free version of that story — you’ll have to subscribe or buy the issue, sorry! But if you do buy it, you can also read my review of Eric Bibb’s latest release, “Ridin’ .”)
And last month saw the publication of my review of the new album by Dawg Yawp, “So Much More,” in AllAboutJazz.com.
And in the Spring issue of BioSupply Trends Quarterly magazine, you can read my article exploring recent claims that medical error and misdiagnosis kill more people than any cause outside cancer and cardiac disease.
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