Paperback Flashback: Beyond the Farthest Star

 

In 2021, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc. released Beyond the Farthest Star: Restored Edition. It features two novellas Burroughs wrote in 1940, "Adventure on Poloda" and "Tangor Returns." The first of these was published in a reportedly abridged and altered form in Blue Book in 1941. The latter didn't see print until 1964, after his death.

The two stories are quite different from Burroughs usual Sword & Planet stories. Sure, a nameless Earth man is transported by occult means to a distant planet where he makes a life and (perhaps) finds love, but there the similarities largely end. First off, there aren't really any swords, making these stories more just Planetary Romances. Secondly, there is nothing of the swashbuckling adventure of John Carter or the wandering through weird societies of Carson Napier. And wooing of a beautiful princess? Forget it.

Instead, it's a relatively grim (for Burroughs) tale of a world ground down by endless war. A battle of civilization forced to live underground and devote itself to the war-effort lest it be destroyed by a relentless, totalitarian enemy. Tangor, as our nameless hero is called on this world of Poloda, joins the air force and flies a number of raids against Kapara, the enemy of hsi adopted home of Unis.

Clearly, Burroughs has the looming second World War on his mind. Is his typical, one might say simplistic, adventure-oriented fashion, Burroughs has his hero question the war or his side. His time is consumed with surviving. Telling, though, there are no heroic victories, no destroyed Death Stars or decisive battles. In fact, the story never lingers on the results of Tangor's sorties, mainly the difficulties he has making it home in one piece.

Illustration by Mark Schultz that doesn't capture much of the book's feel

The second novella "Tangor Returns" is even more remarkable among Burroughs' work. Tangor spends most of it as a spy living undercover in Kapara. He must deal with the constant surveillance and the inability to trust anyone. He is once beaten almost to death by the secret police after a jealous acquaintance has a fake diary planted in his home. He sees one of the few men he comes to trust there "disappeared" after his own son informs on him.

We are a long way from Barsoom or Pellucidar here. Tangor, while a man of accomplishments and ability is more an everyman than most of Burroughs' heroes, a status perhaps hinted at by his name which means "from nothing" in the language of his adopted people.

This is Burroughs more in the style of 1984 than Tarzan. It perhaps is a mode he is less suited to. Certainly, it doesn't capture the imagination in the way of his earlier works. But is interesting and short enough not to overstay its welcome.