Tytell's book Naked Angels is divided into three sections, one each for Jack Kerouac, A. Ginsberg, and William Burroughs. Each section can be read independently of the others, for those just interested in one writer.

I was most interested in the chapter on Burroughs, and here is an appraisal:

A short introductory chapter on Burroughs gives biographical background. The Burroughs section of Naked Angels is entitled "The Black Beauty of William Burroughs," and is a 29-page exploration of Burroughs' writing, with useful comparisons to other writers, such as Poe, Baudelaire, and Nabokov. Tytell analyzes the work Burroughs published from 1953-1973, omitting or including only the slightest references to minor works. Early works which went unpublished for years, such as Queer and Interzone, are not discussed. The book has an index and bibliography. Tytell's book is not wholly given over to Burroughs, but as an introduction to the writer, it serves as well as any other.

If you have read the section on Naked Angels dealing with Burroughs, and you are eager for a more complete investigation of his life, turn to Ted Morgan's book LITERARY OUTLAW, which I believe to be the most thorough and fascinating biography of Burroughs.

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this is the second segment of edgar rice burroughs' "land that time forgot" trilogy and, in my opinion, the best of the three. ex-cowboy tom billings leads a rescue mission to save bowen tyler, the protagonist of the first novel of the series, "the land that time forgot", and manages to have more trouble keeping his own hide intact than in finding his friend. remember, this was written about 1920, but the adventure holds up evev today. anyone not familiar with edgar rice burroughs, prepare for a treat!

I recently found a copy signed and dated Dec. 1885. It is small, about 4"x6", which added to the character. It is a poetic general reference to ornithology. Opinionated and contemporary with Audobon, Wilson, etc. Interesting perspective in that the author isn't afraid to question the bird gods. Anyone remotely interested in the outdoors will begin a new appreciation of birds, and have a keener awareness of thier surroundings upon reading this great book. Anyone who enjoys words will devour this book.

I have read a lot of Burroughs, and this one is rather typical of his stories. The idea of the civilized man having to survive in a savage part of the world is an all too common plot line for him.

The initial idea of European civilization being severely damaged by World War I, while an isolationist North and South America growing to the height of civilization and peace was a brilliant one. The idea of someone from the Americas entering the unknown European realm is a fascinating plot idea. Unfortunately, the book was just not long enough to really develop the story.

Even if World War I had gone as badly as the story indicates, I do not believe that European civilization would have been so totally obliterated that no trace of it would remain. There should have been ruins, at least. It seems more as likely that some sort of Medieval-type society would have resulted, especially since that is so much a part of the history of that part of the world.

Further, when the Roman Empire fell, some learning was preserve in monastaries. It seems to me that something similar would have occurred if World War I had destroyed European civilization. I kept expecting the main characters to come across something of this nature, but they never did.

Third, I find it unlikely that the animals that Burroughs describes as thriving in England would be able to do so, unless the entire climate of the planet had changed, and there is no indication in the novel that this has occurred. Lions and elephants may be able to live in zoos but if turned loose with a few British winters (from what I've read of the British climate), they would certainly not become more populous than humans.

Finally, I felt that the end of the story was rushed. With the material that he had, Burroughs could have stretched this story out to a multi-hundred page novel. As it is, the edition that I read was under 100 pgs.

In all, Burroughs started with a great idea, but it just needed a lot of work.

Typical Burroughs fantasy. Lieutenant Jefferson Turck lives in an isolationist world in which the United States and other North and South American nations have severed ties from the rest of the world for some two hundred years, the last credible contact around 1972. As a commander of a flying-submersible cruiser, his job is to cruise between 30d west and 175d west longitude; to go beyond those lines is to be stripped of rank - if you survive, which no one has.

Beset by sabotage, Turck is cast adrift east of 30d in a motor launch. With a small crew he explores first Great Britian, finding a wilderness complete with lions, tigers and wild animals (ex-zoo residents, often as not). The humans have reverted to spear carrying hunter groups. The motorboat then travels to Europe, which is also a wasteland where nature has reclaimed all of "civilization". A great war - which the Pan-American nations of Turck's origin avoided - had devestated human life in Europe.

In Europe, Turck is captured by soldiers from a black empire from Abysinia who are bringing civilization back to Europe. As well as slavery. He is finally set free by yet a seperate invasion of Chinese troops, who being enlightened free the slaves and reunite Turck with his homeland.

As mentioned, this is typical Burroughs "sceience fiction". Turck encounters a "savage" queen in Great Britian who then almost by chance is encountered again in Europe where they profess their love and hence marriage looms - the same plot seen in many others of his books. He is betrayed by a dastardly villian or two. The technology has "dated" stamped all over it ("submersible flying cruiser"?). He has more than one Tarzan-like encounter in the wilds.

At the same time, it lacks much of the movie-stock plots; the hero's gun doesn't jam and in fact when he encounters lions he shoots quiet a few, only to be driven off by their sheer numbers. (If you've read stories of starved packs of man-eaters terrorizing villages, the idea of hungry prides of lions doing so isn't so far fetched.) His main character sometimes wanders off in introverted sidelights on various subjects but eventually comes back online.

Overall, a good Burroughs read. If you like old-timey adventure fantasy with a bit of man-woman attraction added and exploring lost lands of great forrests, this is a good book to try.

The Lost Continent by Edgar Rice Burroughs is, as every science fiction fan and writer knows, a classic. Burroughs long known for his Tarzan series, is at his best when writing about the future and outer space. In the Lost Continent, Asia and Europe have destroyed themselves in a massive war. Both continents are completely devastated. North America and South America merge forming "Pan-America". Europe and Asia are put off limits by law and Pan-Americans are forbidden travel pass a certain parallel (The original title of the book was Beyond Parallel... I've forgetten the exact number). Hundreds of years pass and everyone forgets that there was ever an Asia or Europe. The book details the voyage of a submarine Captain and his crew as they rediscover acient lands and the humans that inhabit them.

Burroughs creates a language, culture and history that in some form or another have appeared in every science fantasy/fiction written since. It's an easy read, full of adventure and romance. And, you will be amazed at Burroughs vision and skill.

I found Tarzan Forever well written, and often very entertaining and interesting, but very often just plain dead wrong - from badly and broadly misinterpreting texts, such as Lost on Venus (which Taliaferro just didn't get), to many specific mistakes.

Taliaferro regards Lost on Venus an example of Burroughs "climb[ing] on his favorite high horse, eugenics." (page 265) Specifically, Taliaferro refers to Burroughs' creation of Havatoo, a city-state in which eugenics has run amok, concluding that this nightmare city was an ERB utopia. But the depiction of Havatoo is Swiftian - gullible Carson can see only roses at first, but finds after many hair-raising adventures that the Havatoo are as spiritually dead as a race of zombies that occupy a city on the other side of the "River of Death" which separates the two cities. Utopia? Not even close!

And here's an example of a specific error: Taliaferro cites Carson's knowledge of aeronautics as the fact that persuaded the rulers of a kingdom on Venus to spare him. (page 266) But aeronautics came up much later. It was Carson's knowledge of astronomy that saved him. An unimportant detail, maybe, but Taliaferro's book is rife with such errors.

A mistake I found even more annoying - if not downright devious - was Taliaferro's claim that "on the final page" of Apache Devil, Shoz-Dijiji (the Apache Devil of the title) tells his sweetheart, Wichita Billings, "that he is white, nimbly sidestepping the unspeakable eventuality of miscegenation, a well-exercised Burroughs taboo." (page 224) This is as untrue as it is ridiculous! Shoz-Dijiji only tells Wichita he has a secret (i.e., that he is "white") to tell her later. But he never utters his secret to Wichita on the final page - or any other page of Burroughs' novel. In fact, Wichita professes her love for him despite his American Indian heritage. More to the point, as Taliaferro himself notes, Shoz-Dijiji's mother was "one quarter Cherokee." (page 216) Thus, Shoz-Dijiji, one of Burroughs' noblest heroes, not only is mistaken as to his racial heritage, he is also the product of the so-called "Burroughs taboo" against miscegenation! Here, we find a familiar Burroughs theme - individual honor and integrity are what matter, not the color of one's skin.

Those who have aired the tired old claim that Burroughs was a racist, and Taliaferro is solidly in this camp, have simply not been willing to recognize the subtleties of the Burroughs canon (yes, even adventure yarns can be morally ambiguous and complicated). Instead of reading Burroughs' works carefully, with an ear for the era in which they were written, Taliaferro and others skim the books and draw hasty, misinformed conclusions.

Whatever you may think of the writings of Edgar Rice Burroughs--and I personally never thought that much of it--this is still a fascinating look at the life of the man who created one of the most famous characters in all of literary history. We see not just the life that Burroughs led, and the way his interests led him to write what he did. We also get an excellent sense of the times in which he lived and wrote. When ERB is ready to break into the pulps, we get a history of the pulps and what sort of business he was enterring. When ERB works into his tales things like racial purity and eugenics, the biographer goes into detail about the world's views on such things. When Tarzan is created, there is a wonderful discussion of the ape man concept, the feral child being raised in the wild--in reality and in literature. And the care given in describing the various Tarzan films is terrific. Taliaferro's research is excellent. The fact that Burroughs himself cared more about the cents per word payment he was getting than the actual quality of his stories does make him something of a problem child, but as far as a business man, some of his approaches to his work are interesting to say the least. For people who want to learn about the man, the character of Tarzan, the other characters ERB created (since they are not slighted despite the the fact that Tarzan is in the forefront), or the early days of pulp fiction and moviemaking, this is a great book.

I really enjoyed Mr. Taliaferro's incisive treatment of the author's life and unusual ideas.

This book pertains to the bidding maneuvers by the junk bond brokers that led to the fall of the RJR-Nabisco conglomerate. The book builds up on the histories of both RJR and Nabisco from their beginnings, their union and later the stock buy out. I enjoyed the first part about the stories of both companies and how they got built. I did not enjoy towards the end the increasing profusion of names of junk bond traders and other companies that made everything suddenly hard to keep track of. In the end, about half of the time the book focuses on the bids and counter bids and building up on 'suspense' on who is going to get the final bidding. This might have been more interesting in the 80's but nowadays, it may be too long.

I really thought this book wasn't good at all it didn't have ebough information. Please if your going to writ a book try writing a good one. One that acually has some good information in it. Thanx a bunch.

signing off Jessica