leothefox on DeviantArthttps://www.deviantart.com/leothefox/art/Zanthar-collage-475719940leothefox

Deviation Actions

leothefox's avatar

Zanthar collage

By
Published:
1K Views

Description

"Then something happened in the green field
in front of the clearing that made Zanthar for-
get about the cat-lions. Appearing from nowhere
were millions of tiny eyes--and the eyes were
moving..."
-Robert Moore Williams Zanthar At the Edge of Never

Collagious collage of Robert Moore Williams books covers, Clement Coll art, a 70s design photo, and part of one of my pictures. Created at home while watching the unfortunate The Newton Boys and Mark L. Lester's Night of the Running Man.

The book collage series includes:
Fantomas collage by leothefox Scorpio collage by leothefox Fu Manchu Collage by leothefox John Carter Collage by leothefox Robert E. Howard collage by leothefox Callisto Collage by leothefox 

**U** **P** **D** **A** **T** **E**
Alright, I finally read the first book in this series (there are a total of 4) and it does not live up to the cover art. The first Zanthar adventure, "Zanthar of the Many Worlds" proves to be a lamentably dated new-age-y adventure pastiche which attempts to combine Edgar Rice Burroughs, H.P. Lovecraft and Sax Rohmer elements (sound familiar) without displaying any of the skill or entertainment value of those authors.

Also, despite being the main character, Professor Zanthar is only in about half of this book. The rest of it is composed of highly irritating intervals about Zanthar's young lab assistants Red Cornish and Laurel Ponder (yes, those are really their names). Red and Laurel try to find out what whisked Zanthar off to the many worlds (there was in fact only one) when they get abducted by the main villain, Fu Cong. Fu Cong has a flying saucer and a bunch of minions and he promptly whisks these two hapless youngsters off to his fortress in Tibet only to find himself continuously lectured by Ms. Ponder.

This is where we get to one of my biggest gripes with this book: author Robert Moore Williams was 60 when he wrote it and he'd been a professional writer since during The Great Depression. So why, in 1967, did he set a book in 1981 only to have everything be virtually identical to the world in 1967? The parts on Earth (in "the west" anyhow) are populated with hippies and acid heads and terms like "love-in" or "drop-out" are still commonplace? Being delightfully dated is one thing, but to arbitrarily decide that the future will be identical to the present (especially in a sci-fi/fantasy novel) is beyond lazy!

Also, Fu Cong was clearly inspired by Rohmer's Fu Manchu, he's a mad scientist with a lot of thugs and Asian. However, whereas Fu Manchu always spoke clearly in and remained cool and in control in every situation, Fu Cong has a ridiculous exaggerated accent (which seems to be French) and he is easily derailed when Laurel Ponder explains to him that in "the west" they have monogamy, toilets, and no vermin or disease. Who the hell lectures a supervillain and doesn't get tortured afterwards?
Oh and race riots are referenced and "war between the colored and white nations" :shocked:

Meanwhile Zanthar's off planet adventures are just a little too easy as he learns two new languages in a couple hours and befriends all the good aliens much too easily (John Carter and Flash Gordon at least had to fight some guys and crash a rocket or two first). Oh, and the humanoids think he's a god right from the get go and the aliens are far too willing to come to his aid (double dues ex machina :nod:). It's like nobody on this planet has anything better to do.

So, the verdict is, unless you're looking to laugh at supremely dated awful sci-fi, this book is not for you. For all I know it improves vastly in the sequels, but somehow I doubt it.

This is in fact a bigger disappointment to me than the Gor series, because at least that was infamous to start with and I had some warning, plus that first book almost tried to be a sword and planet book instead of a full-time porno. Zanthar doesn't have the excuse of being porn, it's just a sad drab smear on a genre I otherwise enjoy.
Image size
4400x5600px 25.81 MB
© 2014 - 2024 leothefox
Comments29
Join the community to add your comment. Already a deviant? Log In
EchoplexSermon's avatar
That book... doesn't sound very good... I think your work is a bit too nice to put on such a thing, haha.