Tarzan and the Lost Empire - Boris Vallejo book cover art

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Recently, I've posted a lot on science fiction, especially on television and particularly Star Trek. I mean for the scope of this blog to be considerably more broad, so today I bring you this item that surfaced recently as I was re-organizing my book collection.

I came across my Tarzan books from the early 1980's. I have 20 of the original 24 in Edgar Rice Burroughs series about the man raised by apes. Actually, until recently, I had 18, but I've picked up two more recent finds on eBay and alibris.com. There are of course numerous publishings of this series, both hardcover and paperback, in the nearly 100 years since the debut of "Tarzan of the Apes" in 1912. My books are one of at least two mass-market paperback editions published by Ballantine from the 1960's thru the early 1980's, and have black-bordered covers and cover art by Neal Adams and Boris Vallejo. (According to an online interview I found with Boris Vallejo, no single artist has ever illustrated the entire Tarzan series book covers.)

While Neal Adams is certainly no slouch and his art has a somewhat more primitive look that seems very appropriate for books about a jungle-dwelling ape man, I always preferred the Vallejo covers. An example is shown below right.

Pictured here is my copy of "Tarzan and the Lost Empire," about Tarzan's encounter with a group of soldiers separated from the Roman Empire who have been living for generations in a state of cultural suspended animation in the isolated African mountains. This was one of several Tarzan tales that featured "lost cities" hidden in the jungle.

The cover art exemplifies the atmospherics that make Vallejo artwork so interesting to me. Note how the background recedes as if into a mist. Even the fists of Tarzan's gorilla friends seem to be sinking into ground fog. This softening of the background seems to be a Vallejo trademark. "Tarzan and the Castaways" shows dust stirred up by an elephant that appears about to charge, while "Tarzan and the Madman" features Tarzan clinging to the neck of a deadly cape bufflalo in a struggle not to be thrown off and trampled, again with a cloud of dust raised by the fracas.

The color palette is warm, as if the scene is lit by the light of sunrise or sunset or perhaps campfires or torches outside the scene. Chiseled musculature, another Vallejo trademark, is strongly defined on both Tarzan and the menacing Roman Warriors. As for the overall book cover design, the black background and strongly contrasting yellow border lend a simple but graphically pleasing design to this series of books.

Also notice this book's cover price. How long has it been since a paperback could be had for a buck-twenty-five?

Logan's Run - the original novel

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Today's element of recovered childhood is "Logan's Run" - a science fiction novel I read mostly in time spent riding Bob Farmer's school bus #23 in about 1977. It is rare that I read a book more than once, but I am sure I've read this one at least three times.

This novel dates from 1967, during war protest/youth movement days. The premise is this: What if "Never trust anyone over 30" were carried to the nth degree, to the point that, in exchange for a life of luxury, hedonism and leisure, all citizens were required to turn themselves in for "sleep" (read as "dirt nap") at the age of 21? Logan is a DS (Deep Sleep) agent, a police officer whose job it is to enforce the age limit using a pistol which fires a very unique assortment of ammunition.

(If you've only seen the movie and are saying to yourself, "That's not how I remember it," you're probably remembering right, as the movie diverged considerably from the novel. The subsequent TV series strayed even farther from the source novel.)

Authors are William F. Nolan and George Clayton Johnson. Nolan (imdb.com, wikipedia) has been prolific in the science fiction and horror literary genres and has several TV and movie screenplays to his credit, including a "Logan's Run" television series pilot. Nolan also produced two "Logan" sequel novels written without Johnson. Johnson's (imdb.com, wikipedia) credits seem to lie mostly in short stories and television, and he may be best known as writer of the debut episode of "Star Trek," titled "The Man Trap," which aired on Sept. 8, 1966. He also contributed eight "Twilight Zone" episodes. As of this writing both authors are still living and have surpassed their 80th birthdays.

I suspect this novel might have faded into obscurity had it not been rendered as a movie in 1976 and a perhaps mercifully short-lived TV series in 1977. I may address both of these in future posts. My copy of the book pictured here features art from the 1976 movie poster with likenesses of Michael York and Jenny Agutter as Logan and Jessica. This rather rare cover features tattered costumes reflective of the end of the movie, after the heroes had spent several days in the hostile land outside the city of domes. Another, more commonly-seen cover showed them in "pristine" costumes.

The novel is much more expansive in setting than the movie, taking place in multiple cities and in the wilderness, and culminates in a space launch, unlike the movie which is set only in the single, nameless domed city and in the ruins of Washington DC. I don't want to give away much about the book since it is still worth a read whether or not you've seen the movie.

There has been an imdb.com entry for a movie remake of "Logan's Run" for several years. The project was once slated to star Leonardo DiCaprio. As of this writing, the entry lists a 2010 release date, but no cast is listed. The lack of a final cast in late 2009 makes it seem very unlikely we'll see a movie in '10. If anything, it seems this project has taken steps backward from actual production and release, though a truer cinematic representation of this book would be interesting.