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Rating: 
Summary: Tarzan: Stil lord of the jungle
Review: Forget the monosyllabic "Me Tarzan, You Jane'' seen on the big screen: in completing the late, great Edgar Rice Burrough's manuscript, Joe R. Lansdale has recaptured the original spirit of Lord Greystroke. Lansdale's Tarzan is a wonderful melding of Burrough's vine-swinging adventurer and Lansdale's own slightly smart-mouthed characters. Hurling quips and spears with equal aplomb, this Tarzan takes the reader on an adrenalized adventure through primveal jungles and lost cities. The action scences are incredible,and given Lansdale's own background in the martial arts, highly believeable. The interaction among characters is also fantastic. And for long-time Burroughs fan's, there's even a reference to Pellucidar, the Land at the Earth's Core. I finished the book in one reading. What else could you ask for in a book (except maybe, just maye, Lansdale penning another Tarzan saga)
Rating: 
Summary: Good Effort, But Not Quite ERB
Review: I did not necessarily have high hopes for this book. As a pre-teen and teenager I was in love with the writing of Burroughs and Robert E. Howard, as well as their most famous characters, Tarzan and Conan, respectively. And I have had a lot of respect for the company controlling Burroughs's copyrights for not dumping a lot of Tarzan pastiches on the marketplace as has happened with Conan. But having watched hack after hack literally destroy Conan, my expectations for this book were fairly low. Fortunately, I was somewhat surprised. While it definitely lacks Burroughs's tone in many places, it's relatively true to the original character. Lansdale appears to be a decent enough writer and I think he has a lot of respect for the Tarzan mythos. He wisely introduces one of my favorite characters into the storyline, Jad-Bal-Ja (the golden lion), but I ultimately wasn't overly impressed with what I considered the science fiction aspects of the story, e.g., the bug-like monster. Not that Burroughs didn't frequently troll the waters of science fiction in Tarzan, it just seemed to lack a degree of originality. The downer ending was also something of an oddity. Admittedly, "Tarzan of the Apes," the one that started it all, had a downer ending, but for the most Burroughs generally wrapped up his Tarzan stories with a semblance of "everything is now right in the world." Okay, so maybe I'm being picky. I do recommend this book. It is an entertaining read and is never boring. I guess anyone who tries to pick up where my favorite authors left off is usually going to face some negative criticism.
Rating: 
Summary: Should have picked another writer to finish it
Review: I eagerly awaited this book for about 15 years, ever since I learned that there was an unfinished Tarzan story by Burroughs, but I was quite disappointed by what was done with ERB's manuscript. Compare Lansdale's version with the synopsis of ERB's 80 page manuscript in the appendix to the Porges biography of ERB. Lansdale really butchered many elements already worked out by ERB. I understand it's very hard to match the quality of ERB's storytelling, and I don't like to overly criticize people, but it doesn't seem that Lansdale even tried to write a decent book. It reads to me like a hack job, with little regard for style or the character created by ERB. For example, would ERB have written "Keep your mind off the loincloth, dear?" I don't think so. Nor is ERB's Tarzan a braggart. His character is existential. But not so existential that he would just give up on Jane and enter Pellucidar. In the Dark Horse 4 part serial version of this book, there are so many errors as to believe that Lansdale was half asleep when he wrote this. For example, there are characters in certain scenes which are actually someplace else in Africa in a different part of the storyline. Tell me Lansdale didn't just write this book as quickly as he could. As for the reviewer who criticised ERB's supposedly dense style and praised Lansdale's stilted 3 word sentences and then said, "Well, I've read all the Tarzan, Barzoom, and Pellucidar novels at least twice, so I guess I'm well-informed also"... All I can respond to that is, if you've read Burroughs' Mars books so many times, why don't you know how to spell Barsoom? And one more thing, ERB's style is elegant, the thing which makes his stories immortal. Philip Jose Farmer should have been given the chance to finish ERB's last Tarzan novel (I'm not referring to his Tarzan pastiches A Feast Unknown and Lord of the Trees, which were meant to be humorous, not true adaptions of ERB's character). At least he understands the character better (read THE DARK HEART OF TIME for an example of this). This book gets 2 stars, not for Lansdale's efforts or lack thereof, but because of the occasional glimpse of a paragraph penned by Edgar Rice Burroughs, the Master of Adventure.
Rating: 
Summary: Boring, this one is not worth the time.
Review: I've noted that some other reviewers did not like this book. Actually, I was very satisfied with it. One of my favorite characters, little Nkima, the monkey, has a prominent place in this book. The book also has pretty women, savage tribes, and a very spooky and decadent lost city, which is a setting for much action. Some have criticized the new author's style. However, Burroughs himself writes a kind of very dense, 19th century style which makes it very hard for me to recommend Burroughs to teenagers. Unless they want to keep encountering unfamiliar five-syllable Latinate words, and 80-word complex sentences. Let's fact it, EGB wrote some pretty dense stuff. Lansdale's style is cleaner, and is more typified by short, direct sentences. The description is good, and the mood is well controlled by Lansdale. I did think this book is more bloody and graphic in its violence than the original EGB Tarzan books. Tarzan always killed to defend himself or rescue "drop dead" girls, but the graphic details added by Lansdale are a bit grim at times. I did feel the bad guys through the early book were not bad enough. They just seemed to be violent military deserters with no sinister or evil plans except to steal another safari's supplies. They are just foils, really. I like Tarzan's new personality. He has a times a biting wit, expressed in the laconic few words that we would expect of him. The writing surrounding the airplane crash and the "sparks" between the surviving passengers-- these seemed excellent writing. If Mr. Lansdale writes more Tarzan books, I will buy them for sure. Alas, this was originally published in '96, and apparently nothing more has come out. So perhaps there will be no more Tarzan left to read. By the way, another reviewer said he has read "everything Burroughs wrote." Well, I've read all the Tarzan, Barzoom, and Pellucidar novels at least twice, so I guess I'm well-informed also. Try it-- you'll (probably) like it!
Rating:
Summary: Fast adventure, but not ERB!
Review: Joe Lansdale has written a fast-paced book filled with villainous villains, heroic heroes and heroines, and breathtaking jungle adventures. The engaging yarn pauses in just the right spots for humorous interludes, many of which are supplied by Tarzan's animal friends. Hey, I even learned some new information about the thought processes of lions and monkeys, and about the great apes who raised Tarzan. (Lansdale convinced me that he -- and Tarzan -- can talk to the animals!) Unlike too many books I've read lately, the ending to this novel was more than satisfying. (It does beg for a sequel, however, but that's great by me.) If you like Tarzan, you gotta love this story.
Rating:
Summary: Disappointing to one who's read everything ERB wrote!
Review: Mr. Lansdale has come up with a passable plot by copying Mr. Burroughs' most used formulae. Unfortunately, the book disappoints, even offends, in two critical areas. First, I wonder if he has ever read ERB's Tarzan stories enough to know the character. Lansdale's Tarzan alternates between taciturnity and sarcasm. By the time ERB got to "Tarzan and the Foreign Legion", Tarzan was amazingly social, able to carry on friendly conversation, given to smiling, even laughing occasionally, and had no problem with contractions. Lansdale's Tarzan ponders how he and Jane have grown apart and is unconcerned about getting home. ERB's Tarzan loved Jane deeply and she, in turn, understood his occasional need to escape into the jungle for the adventures of his boyhood. The second failing, one the introduction attempts to make excuses for, is Mr. Lansdale poor grammar and sentence structure. He writes in repetitive short sentence structure. Remember how you English teacher taught you to take: "He crossed the camp and sat on the stool. He picked up the map. Then he took a drink of coffee." and make it more interesting by changing it to: "Crossing the camp, he settled himself onto the stool. As he began to study the map, he reached for his coffee, taking a relaxing sip from it..." I think Mr. Lansdale missed that class. Dialogue is filled with a repetition of "said" and "asked". It becomes tedious. How about announced, sighed, grunted, gasped, commented, corrected, argued, inquired, added, continued, etc.? Variety holds a reader's interest better than repetition. I had high hopes that, like Fritz Leiber with "Tarzan and the Valley of Gold", it would be a well-written story, honoring the personality Mr. Burroughs created, which evolved through his 25 books (including "Tarzan and the Tarzan Twins"), as well as Mr. Burroughs' flowing style.
Rating:
Summary: Boring, this one is not worth the time.
Review: Same old sceanrio in a Tarzan story, spend your valuable time reading the earlier books in the series, you'll be happy you did!
Rating: 
Summary: Just not Burroughs enough
Review: There's just too much of Lansdale and not enough Burroughs. In Poodle Springs by Raymond Chandler and Robert B. Parker, you can not tell where Chandler ends and Parker picks up. In finishing a lost manuscript, the author finishing should attempt to stay as true to the original authors style as possible. Lansdale failed in this area. The book is good reading and a good adventure, but just like the movies, just not Burroughs Tarzan.
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