Mainstream readers of early 20th-century adventure stories may no longer be familiar with the name Talbot Mundy. His novels enjoyed a brief rediscovery in the 1960s, when anyone who could reasonably be compared to Edgar Rice Burroughs, Robert E. Howard, Sax Rohmer or H. Rider Haggard was dusted off and trotted out to fill grocery store spin racks, but unlike the others, Mundy has vanished from all but the best-stocked bookstore fantasy collections.
Some niche publishers are keeping him alive, if not vigorous. Aegypan has just come out with a new edition of the 1922 novel CAVES OF TERROR, a book which displays both Mundy’s undeniable strengths and his unfortunate weaknesses.
The protagonists are British agent/adventurer Athelstan King – originally from the novel KING OF THE KHYBER RIFLES – and his American sidekick Greg Ramsden. They are in India to prevent a brilliant mahatma and the beautiful but wicked Princess Yasmini from overthrowing the Raj and taking control of the subcontinent, i.e., putting an end to colonial rule and liberating India. Note that this would be a bad thing, according to Mundy.
The longest section of this short novel takes place in caves under the city of Benares. King and Ramsden follow the mahatma like a pair of Dantes treading in the sandal steps of a turbaned Virgil. The cave is rife with traps – think Indiana Jones – killer crocodiles, panthers, madmen, lakes of fire, the whole magilla.
Mundy’s descriptions of these elements are terrific, as is his delineation of the friendship between the two Westerners. His weakness comes from his interest in Theosophy, that cafeteria-style, Westernized Hinduism that was the Scientology of its day. Between death traps, the mahatma enlightens us with hints to the secrets of eternity. This slows the going down considerably, but the book is so short, you know the meditation won’t last long.
CAVES OF TERROR is not one of Mundy’s strongest stories – in fact, there isn’t much story here – but if you don’t know his work and would rather not begin with one of the longer novels, this is a reasonable place to start. If you like his dialogue – which I think is a strong point – and his word painting, there’s a lot more out there. –Doug Bentin
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