FOREWORD

Master storyteller that he was, Edgar Rice Burroughs developed a variety of narrative techniques, applying different ones to different series of stories so that each series has a distinct "feel" of its own, not only in setting and characters, but in the very construction of the story and in the writing itself. For his Mars series, for instance, Burroughs began each story with a rather elaborate "frame" in which the story's hero was introduced. The hero then would tell the main story in the first person. The readers became so accustomed to this format that when one magazine published a Burroughs Mars story told in third person, there was an immediate uproar among the readers, and to this day many Burroughs fans challenge the authenticity of that story as Burroughs' own work!

For the Tarzan tales, Burroughs used a technique of introducing several sets of characters, starting each upon their own separate adventure, and then "cutting" from sequence to sequence in a style very much like that used in motion pictures. Skillfully drawing his characters together, Burroughs would finally reveal the grand pattern in which each element played its part.

In Tarzan the Invincible Burroughs applies this technique to three groups of protagonists. First are a band of communist agents provocateurs assembled from many lands and determined to stir rebellion in all of Africa. Second are the beautiful rival priestesses of fabled Opar, golden remnant of an ancient Atlantean colony. Third is Tarzan, lord of the jungle, who stands ready to face any challenge to his savage domain. Weaving these together in masterful fashion, Burroughs produces a tale of high adventure, spine-tingling action and suspense amidst colorful and exotic settings.

—Richard Lupoff
Editor, Xero, a fantasy
fiction fan magazine.