The Caspak trilogy from Edgar Rice Burroughs combines pulp sensibilities with sci fi and delivers one of the great lost world tales of genre literature.
What Is It?
This lost world tale takes place on the uncharted continent of Caspak which is located near Antartica and is also known as Caprona for the Italian explorer Caproni who discovered it in 1721. The first book sets up the tale and takes place during the World War I years as it follows a group of travelers whose ship is sunk by a German U-Boat but who eventually manage to commandeer that submarine and direct it to what they believe are safe waters (the book’s lead character, Bowen Tyler, just happened to work in an American U-Boat factory and is therefore very familiar with the vessels). However, sabotage puts them off-course to Antarctic waters where they stumble upon a strange continent surrounded by cliffs. They discover an underwater river that gives them access to the interior and there they find a world that has never advanced beyond the Stone Age. It is populated with dinosaurs, early mammals such as saber-tooth tigers and mammoths, and primitive men. Once there, the Americans, British, and Germans agree to set aside their differences and find a way to survive in this amazing yet treacherous land. In the second book, a friend of Bowen Tyler’s, Tom Billings, flies a rescue plane into Caspak in search of the castaways and lives among the primitive people after he crashes and finds himself marooned in this mysterious land. In the third book, one of the British sailors, Bradley, is taken away to the land of the Wieroo and learns much about the nature of the humans in Caspak as well as these strange winged men that appear to be the highest level of evolution in this forgotten world.
Author: Edgar Rice Burroughs
Publication Dates:
1918 – The Land That Time Forgot
1918 – The People That Time Forgot
1918 – Out of the Abyss
1924 – The Land That Time Forgot (Compiles all three above)
Legacy:
Counting more as a guilty pleasure than a classic of sci fi literature, this series delivers a pulpy lost world tale with dinosaurs and cavemen and and damsels in distress, all of which lead to plenty of heroics and daring-do from the alpha-male lead characters. It also throws in some memorable characters and interesting world-building.
A Closer Look:
While the Tarzan and John Carter books usually get the most attention among Burroughs’ expansive output, the Caspak trilogy is also notable among his works and has established its own legion of fans. Taking the lead from Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Lost World (which predates these books by six years), Burroughs provides a seminal set of adventures in the same vein and helps set the template for the many similar stories that would follow.
Along with their adventure yarns, these books also throw in a few scientific facts based on what was known in those days about the prehistoric world. But this is in no way an attempt at hard science fiction, even though Burroughs gives Caspak its own interesting if improbable twist on evolution. If you think too much about the science around it all (i.e., dinosaurs, saber-tooths, and cavemen co-existing), it falls apart pretty quickly. But then you’re also missing the point. The books give us just good, fun pulp adventure (with the requisite love interests thrown in as well) and some scientific jargon added for good measure. Don’t devote too much brain matter to the way that evolution works in this land, because it’s quite silly if you really think about it. But then it’s also rather cool in a comic book sort of way if you can just throw science out the window for a bit. And it does add nicely to the world-building we get from the book series.
The first book starts out as more of a naval adventure story as we follow the U-Boat on its misguided course that takes it to the edge of Caspak. Once they are within the outer cliffs of this mysterious land, the story enters into lost world territory rife with dinosaurs and cavemen and dangers around every corner. The second book gives us more of a look at the primitive people of the land and how they interact with one another as well as how they advance from one stage of evolution to the next. The third book expands on this and also gives us a look at the culture of the eerie Wieroo who lord over the other intelligent creatures of the land from afar. And as far as a dinosaur scorecard, the first book in the series has plenty of giant lizards, the second almost none, and the third a few more than the second. Book 1 is the best of the three and Book 3 is quite good because the Wieroo are creepy and interesting and offer a new twist to the overall story. The second doesn’t quite match up to 1 or 3, but it’s still a decent read.
This series should definitely be of interest to sci fi fans, but they should go in with the understanding that this is very much pulp fiction and not hard sci fi. Also note that the books pack in many of the gender stereotypes, genre clichés, unlikely coincidences, and last-minute rescues that you expect from pulp stories. But then Burroughs was a master of this style of writing and he also throws in just enough originality, unique twists, and flare to help his books rise above the more mundane sci fi/fantasy stories of the early days of the genre. This is classic pulp sci fi at its best which can make for quite an enjoyable read if you are looking for a good yarn that doesn’t tax the mind too much but also doesn’t offend your sensibilities.
What About the Movie Version?
In 1974, a movie adaptation of The Land That Time Forgot hit the big screen one year before Jaws kicked off the Blockbuster Era. The film version of Land was definitely not a big-budget affair, but it still had decent production values for a genre entry at that time. It used puppets to create the dinosaurs and that actually proved quite effective, though it looks rather cheesy from the perspective of modern-day special effects. The film did have a successful run in the theaters and generated the sequel The People That Time Forgot, though that one was not as well received. Both films have mostly been forgotten as relics of their era, but they do still have a cult following and fans of the books should enjoy the first movie at least. In 2009, another movie version of the first book was released, but it is a super-cheap, direct-to-home-video release from The Asylum and had little connection to the source material.
The Story Continues
In 2011, Campfire Classics put out a graphic novel version of The Land The Time Forgot with Scott Young adapting the story and K.L. Jones providing the artwork. That was followed up by The People That Time Forgot which came from the same team, but Out of Time’s Abyss did not get its own adaptation. In 2016, Mike Wolfer and Giancarlo Caracuzzo continued the story of Caspak with an all-new comic book series put out by American Mythology Productions. That follows the great-great-great-granddaughter of Bowen and Lys Tyler who searches out the land of Caspak to prove that it does exist. The series was part of the Edgar Rice Burroughs Universe established by that company and it has been compiled in Trade Paperback and eBook format.
Interesting Facts:
All three books were originally serialized in 1918 from September through November in Blue Book Magazine. The Land That Time Forgot was the first segment, The People That Time Forgot the second, and Out of Time’s Abyss the third. In 1924, all three of these were compiled as a published book using The Land That Time Forgot as the title. It was not until the 1960’s Ace editions that they were published as three separate books.
Where Can You Find the Books?
As with the majority of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ works, the Caspak trilogy is widely available in paperback, hardback, and eBook formats. These are also in the public domain, and free eText versions of all three are available at Project Gutenberg and free audiobook versions are available at Librivox.org at the links below:
The Land That Time Forgot: eText | audiobook
The People That Time Forgot: eText | audiobook
Out of Time’s Abyss: eText | audiobook
