Tarzan and the City of Gold : (#16) (Tarzan)

Rating:
Summary: Tarzan meets another queen in yet another lost city...
Review: "Tarzan and the City of Gold" is the sixteenth Tarzan novel authored by Edgar Rice Burroughs and represents what was clearly the standard formula for these novels at this time in ERB's career. Tarzan rescues a white man being tortured by natives and discovers the stranger, named Valthor, is from the fabled land of Onthat. This particular region is the home to two more of those lost cities that keep popping up in the Tarzan novels, Athne, the city of ivory, and Cathne, the city of gold. The later is an evil land, ruled by the beautiful queen Nemone, where prides of lions are trained to hunt down the enemy in the great war between the two cities. Of course Nemone wants the Ape Lord to be her king, with the alternative being served as a main course to Belthar, Nemone's favorite fighting lion. The plot may be a standard ERB adventure, involving yet another trip to yet another undiscovered lost land in darkest Africa, but Burroughs does heap on the adventure. There is the gladiator Phobeg, the Cathne prisoner who has to fight Tarzan in a public spectacle, Alextar, Nemone's brother and the rightful king who is now imprisoned, and Hafim, another slave freed by Tarzan. All of these characters become part of the mosaic of sub-plots that keep the action rolling. The repetitive formula is becoming tedious (Nemone is just another cut rate version of La of Opar), but Burroughs does like to create new cultures. Still, starting from scratch over and over again in these Tarzan novels is not as satisfying as the depth he provides in other series such as the John Carter of Mars or Pellucidar books where he has plenty of time to develop his strange new worlds. "Tarzan and the City of Gold" is an ERB adventure that you read more out of a sense of completeness rather than because this is one of the best in the bunch. This is average Burroughs, which for its time and place, was meant above average adventure yarns.

Rating:
Summary: Another lost city, another queen, another Tarzan pot-boiler
Review: "Tarzan and the City of Gold" is the sixteenth Tarzan novel authored by Edgar Rice Burroughs and represents what was clearly the standard formula for these novels at this time in ERB's career. Tarzan rescues a white man being tortured by natives and discovers the stranger, named Valthor, is from the fabled land of Onthat. This particular region is the home to two more of those lost cities that keep popping up in the Tarzan novels, Athne, the city of ivory, and Cathne, the city of gold. The later is an evil land, ruled by the beautiful queen Nemone, where prides of lions are trained to hunt down the enemy in the great war between the two cities. Of course Nemone wants the Ape Lord to be her king, with the alternative being served as a main course to Belthar, Nemone's favorite fighting lion. The plot may be a standard ERB adventure, involving yet another trip to yet another undiscovered lost land in darkest Africa, but Burroughs does heap on the adventure. There is the gladiator Phobeg, the Cathne prisoner who has to fight Tarzan in a public spectacle, Alextar, Nemone's brother and the rightful king who is now imprisoned, and Hafim, another slave freed by Tarzan. All of these characters become part of the mosaic of sub-plots that keep the action rolling. The repetitive formula is becoming tedious (Nemone is just another cut rate version of La of Opar), but Burroughs does like to create new cultures. Still, starting from scratch over and over again in these Tarzan novels is not as satisfying as the depth he provides in other series such as the John Carter of Mars or Pellucidar books where he has plenty of time to develop his strange new worlds. "Tarzan and the City of Gold" is an ERB adventure that you read more out of a sense of completeness rather than because this is one of the best in the bunch. This is average Burroughs, which for its time and place, was meant above average adventure yarns. There is a sequel to this novel in the ERB novella "Tarzan and the Elephant Men" (1937), which was published as the second half of "Tarzan the Magnificent."