Out of Time's Abyss

Despite an ending that is far, far too neat and unbelievable in its chronological relation to the first two books in the series, this is the best of the lot. Burroughs tamps down his love of coincidence and provides some interesting - if incompletely worked out - ideas. But then Burroughs was never an author known for rigorously working out the implications of his premises.

What Burroughs does deliver is romantic adventure. Yes, like The People That Time Forgot, this novel's hero, Bradley from the first novel, accidentally, inevitably falls in love with a native woman he rescues. The two are fellow prisoners in Oo-Oh, dubbed by Bradley as the City of Human Skulls. Their captors are the Wieroo, Caspak's most advanced humans. Not only do show more they have wings, but, unlike every other human group on Caspak, they have writing and textiles. They also, in bootstrapping their evolution and competing with the other humans on the island, developed a cruel culture dedicated to spreading the orthodoxy of their thought. (I suspect we are to see a parallel to the Prussianism of the villainous U-Boat commander from the first book - who makes a reappearance here.) Their religion is based on advancement by murder, and they really do like building out of skulls. Bradley's adventures among the Wieroo are good, exciting stuff.

Burroughs also is more explicit here about some of the details on how human development works on Caspak, a land where most humans start out as tadpole-like critters in ponds and, barring accident and bad genes, become human. It's a three-quarters baked idea here but still interesting.

This novel probably works better if you read its immediate successor, The People That Time Forgot, first. show less

Once you reach a certain age the improbability of the wonders being described are too much for absorbed reading to be possible. I think that age is way less than 13 for this adventure tale written 100 years ago and full or such gems as "but don't worry little girl;" to a woman who proves to be quite capable though of course idiot enough to love him devotedly and be the perfect supportive companion. The incidents of this book are crammed into less than 120 pages and would fill 500 in a modern novelization, but you can go far fast if your characters aren't packing any character. Of course ERB could write and the book is readable, but why?

This story marks a completely different type of Caspak adventure. Rather than trekking through the untamed wilds of a prehistoric world, slaying saurians and dispatching hairy savage natives with the odd well placed bullet; Early on in the adventure our hero, Bradley, is plucked from the skies above by a nightmarish winged demon called a Wieroo and carried off to a fortress city where he is held captive and has to make good his escape against impossible odds. On route he naturally meets a young girl whom he is too inept to realise is falling in love with him and he with her; but eventually, as happens in these stories, he figures it out - only at the very last minute mind you. Where do writers like Burroughs and O.A.Kline get these show more emotionally retarded men from I wonder?

Just a couple of oversights which spoilt it for me:

I was reading the 1975 Tandem edition of this story: originally written for Blue Book Magazine in 1918, so it is most likely that my copy has been heavily abridged - as many of these mass market paperbacks were; but:

Never once through the story do I recall ever being told the name of Bradley's female companion? In fact through out the novel she is only referred to as 'the girl'; yet roughly ten pages before the end Bradley suddenly introduces her to his friends as 'Co-Tan' - What? 'the girl' has a name? When did this news come out?
Then the big secret which Bradley is concealing from her the whole time they are together: that he failed to save the life of her brother An-Tak, whom he had previously shared a cell with, suddenly appears to be common knowledge to her when she announces this fact to her father in conversation! Huh?

Like I said, I only read the Tandem copy of 'Out of Tme's Abyss' so I expect these facts may have been addressed in Burroughs original story? show less

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I know some have said the plot is a repeat of the two previous books, but I didn't feel that at all. Burroughs has delivered another fun adventure while answering the rest of our questions about Caspak and giving us a happy ending for the series.

Originally posted at FanLit. http://www.fantasyliterature.com/reviews/out-of-times-abyss/

In Out of Timeƒ??s Abyss, the last volume of Edgar Rice Burroughƒ??s CASPAK trilogy, we learn what happened to Bradley, one of the adventurers we met in the first novel, The Land that Time Forgot. As we expected, Bradley has frightening adventures on Caspak, is nearly killed by lions, bears, tigers, dinosaurs, etc, and he saves and falls in love with a beautiful young damsel in distress.

In this installment, we meet the Wieroo, the most highly evolved species on Caspak. Their form and society isnƒ??t at all what the American and European adventurers would have expected. We also learn the rest of the mystery of the strange evolution that has show more happened on Caspak. Since this is Earth instead of a fantasy world, itƒ??s all too far-fetched to believe, but thatƒ??s okay because we werenƒ??t really expecting or demanding more from a lost world story.

The plot of Out of Timeƒ??s Abyss could have been enjoyable, but its problem is that, except for the episode with the Weiroo, itƒ??s nearly identical to the previous two CASAPAK stories, The Land that Time Forgot and The People that Time Forgot: white man fights prehistoric creatures and falls in love with the adorable native girl heƒ??s protecting. At this point, the formula which has worked well before has become stale.

Blackstone Audioƒ??s version of Out of Timeƒ??s Abyss was read by Brian Emerson who does a great job. The CASPAK trilogy was published in 1918 so you can find both a print and an audio version in the public domain. show less

This final volume in the Caspak trilogy follows the adventures of Bradley, one of the sailors whose path became separated from that of most of his fellows in the previous novel. It is very like the second volume in that Bradley like Tom Billings in that book adventures across the surface of the continent and finds and rescues a Caspakian woman, Co-Tan, with whom he falls in love. Most of the enemies Bradley faces though are not dinosaurs or wild animals, but the intelligent but hideous and murderous Wieroos, who have a much more advanced civilisation than any other hominid race in Caspak. After many brushes with death, at the end of the novel, Bradley and Co-Tan meet Billings and Ajor and they and all the surviving crewmembers of their show more ship and of the original German U-Boat sail off into the sunrise. show less

Nice job of pulling together the unknowns of the two prior books and explaining the mysteries of Caspak.