Like a lot of guys my age, I got turned on to Edgar Rice Burroughs back in the early 1960s when Ace Books began reprinting his titles in paperback. I know it’s getting late in the game, but I still haven’t read all of them, although I have read a representative sampling of all of his classic series: Tarzan, John Carter of Mars, Pellicudar, Venus. Not long ago, I re-read some and was reminded how good he could be when he was firing on all cylinders.
Over the years, my ERB mania has broadened into a love of pulp fiction in general, so I spend way too much time online searching for interesting pulp reprints. This led me to Pulpville Press and one of its imprints, ERBville Press. Pulpistas, you gotta check these guys out. Surprises abound. Like, for instance, Burrough’s BEWARE! THE SCIENTIST’S REVOLT. In decades of reading Burroughs, I had never come across this title, but it is legitimate.
Seems that back in the early 1920s, Burroughs wanted to know what Stephen King wondered about much later: Did his name on the title page alone sell the book, or would one of his yarns sell if it went out to editors under a pseudonym? Between Aug. 9-31, 1922, he wrote the novelette BEWARE! and sent it out into the world as written by “John Tyler McCulloch.” It was a flop.
Eventually, it sold to Ray Palmer at AMAZING STORIES. With Burroughs’ permission — he was a pretty easygoing fellow — this contemporary mystery/spy thriller was rewritten as science fiction, re-titled THE SCIENTIST’S REVOLT, and finally published in the pulp FANTASTIC ADVENTURES in July 1939. The Burroughs original stayed tucked away for another 35 years, not seeing publication until the July 1974, issue of THE BURROUGHS BULLETIN.
BEWARE! begins somewhere in Eastern Europe. The country is called Assuria, but the names of the characters make it feel like Russia. Russia = Assuria — not too much of a stretch. The emperor and his wife, who has just given birth to a prince, are trapped by revolting peasants — is there any other kind? — so they give their baby son to a commoner guard named Semepovski to carry away. The guard’s wife has also just had a baby, so the two children can escape together. It’s all very Dumas.
The royal family is killed by the revolutionaries and — on the ship carrying Semepovski and his wife, son and prince to America — one of the babies dies and is dropped overboard. Decades later, Semepovski is an American cop and his son is working undercover to expose a spy ring from Assuria. Ah, but is he Semepovski’s natural son or is he the prince?
There’s a murder to solve, villains to expose, and a beautiful young woman to rescue. The description is Burroughs, but the story lacks the excitement of his more exotic tales. There is none of that cinematic cross-cutting he used so well — one chapter follows one group of adventurers, and the next chapter cuts to another group, continuing this way until everyone meets up for the finale.
It wouldn’t surprise me to learn that Burroughs knew this was a weak story and that’s why he was willing to use it for this experiment. Or maybe, deep down, he didn’t want a story without his name on it to sell.
Anyway, Burroughs collectors will want to own this volume, containing as it does both versions of the yarn, even if one is weak Burroughs and the other is ersatz Burroughs. Sometimes, watered-down soup is better than no soup at all. —Doug Bentin
OTHER BOOKGASM REVIEWS OF THIS AUTHOR:
• THE CHESSMEN OF MARS by Edgar Rice Burroughs
• THE GODS OF MARS by Edgar Rice Burroughs
• A PRINCESS OF MARS by Edgar Rice Burroughs
• TARZAN AND THE FORBIDDEN CITY by Edgar Rice Burroughs
• TARZAN AND THE JEWELS OF OPAR by Edgar Rice Burroughs
• TARZAN: THE CLASSICS – TARZAN AND THE GOLDEN LION / TARZAN AND THE ANT MEN by Edgar Rice Burroughs
• THUVIA, MAID OF MARS by Edgar Rice Burroughs
• THE WARLORD OF MARS by Edgar Rice Burroughs
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