All Reviews by Fred Smooty
The Gods of Pegana
by Lord Dunsany
If you enjoy fantasy, you HAVE to read this book! If you enjoy philosophy, you HAVE to read this book. This author influenced so many authors it is hard to write them all down.
Captain Blood
by Rafael Sabatini
If you enjoy high adventure, this is a must read and worth your time! And if you have not read high adventure yet, this is one of the first books you pick up - particularly to taste the adventures of pirate.
Michael Strogoff
by Jules Verne
This character should have been written into the comic and movie of the "League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen". This is a great adventure and this maybe one of the realistically toughest gentlemen every written into literature. A good story for this era or time.
The Mucker
by Edgar Rice Burroughs
A 'mucker' is made into a gallant gentleman. This is one of ERB's most sought after story and he had high hope the Billy Byrne would be one of his most popular characters - alas - it did not turn out so. Interesting to compare the first Tarzan story and see the contrasts and parallels between Billy Byrne and Tarzan and their character developements into gentlemen. Burroughs gives apes ('Kala') more humane traits than men of the inner cities and slums. Despite being an adventure story, ERB's book seems to make some indictment of the men of 'world' of the inner city and slums of the era. I wonder if he was influenced by 'muckracker' writers that started in the 1880's and continued into the 1920's.
Tarzan of the Apes
by Edgar Rice Burroughs
This is high adventure! Clearly one of ERB's best adventures and BEST written stories.
A Princess of Mars
by Edgar Rice Burroughs
A grand adventure. Clearly the best of the 'Barsoom' series. It is interesting to see how much ERB viewed of a classic, sterotyped, gentile, chivalrous, gentlemen of the old southern civil war era and then transplanted him into a very different culture. While his idea of transplanting a 'human' into another alien world or culture was used by him several other times, it is more interesting to reflect how his way of doing this type adventure plot was later used by other writers. Before you read other such stories or go further in other such series, read this book first. While you should not really try to read to much high philsophy or literature into pulp tales, it makes for interesting reflection to seek out the influence of ERB in the works of later adventure writers.