ERB's Moon Trilogy

Tracking down obscure novels by Edgar Rice Burroughs had become a bit of a hobby for me. His dated simplistic prose and writing techniques are beneath the notice of the modern reader enamored with high falootin' "literature" from sources like Dan Brown and J. K. Rowling. Furthermore many of his books are in the public domain. What publisher worth his salt would publish a free book. But I maintain that his joyful energetic writing of fantastical literature is without parallel.

The only place I could find the Moon Trilogy was on the Australian Gutenberg Project web page.

There are three novellas in the series. Each is quite short and, despite the name given the series, most of the narrative takes place on Earth.

The first book, The Moon Maid, is a fairly derivative ERB work. The heroes travel to a hidden realm located in the center of the moon. Strange animals and barbaric alien races are encountered. The protagonist, a guy named Julian the 5th, comes across a beautiful alien with whom he falls in love and goes to great lengths to rescue. There are some cool scenes and the book has a much darker tone than other ERB works. The ending is pretty traumatic. The bad guys are obviously inspired by the Bolsheviks of the Russian revolution and the Moon Maid herself is analogous to Princess Anastasia.

The second book, The Moon Men, takes place on Earth and the hero is Julian the 9th. By this time the Moon Men called Kalkars have taken over the Earth and reduced the native population to slave status. This book chronicles Julian's attempts to throw off his shackles and is an obvious dig at Russian communism. Again, the ending ain't so happy.

The final book, The Red Hawk, is narrated by Julian the 20th a.k.a. the Red Hawk. Life in America has reverted to the stone age. The evil Kalkars are on the run and the Flag worshiping remnants of the Ancient U. S. of A are prepping to push them in to the sea.

John Carter of Mars is mentioned in the first book. But contact is lost by the second book. The sweep of time is a cool affect as is the distinctly different settings of the three books. ERB attributes the ills of socialism to a racial quality of the Kalkars which doesn't really work for me. The series is not one of ERB's best but it does get better as it goes along and eventually defines itself as something unique and different from his other "planetary romances".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Moon_Maid