Things I Have Read

Jongor of Lost Land by Robert Moore Williams

"JONGOR - A JUNGLE HERO GREATER THAN TARZAN - IN A PRIMITIVE LAND OF SAVAGE NATIVES AND MAN-HUNGRY MONSTERS" screams the back cover blurb. The truth is that Jongor is a Tarzan imitator living in a land that is a Lost World imitator. Although Robert Moore Williams does not make his creations as convincing as those of Burroughs and Doyle, he throws in a bit of Mu pseudo-archaeology myth as well, thereby additionally ripping off a guy ripping off Plato.

Jongor of Lost Land is a quick read and it moves along in a fairly predictable and clichéd, but entertaining way. While definitely inferior to the works it calls to mind (The Lost World and especially Tarzan of the Apes), it is up to the job of providing some light entertaining reading.

To be fair, I do not think Williams actually relies on coincidence any more than Burroughs does to move his story along, but he is just less convincing at it. Burroughs will place the fortunate coincidence away from the point of the narrative where it is actually needed, giving it less of a "pulled from a hat" feel. In fact, Jongor (contracted from "John Gordon") has a somewhat less fantastic background than Tarzan, having been raised by human to a reasonable age. This alone, however, is not enough to make a more convincing yarn.

The heroine is threatened with primate lust in both Tarzan of the Apes and Jongor of Lost Land, but while Burroughs handles the matter without any hint of leering and manages to make it seem plausible in context, Williams does not quite manage either. Jane is kidnapped by an outcast with none of his own kind still available to him and long acceptance of a human as part of his tribe, whereas Ann Hunter in Jongor is the object of desire of a successful member of "Murian" society, attracted to an alien female for no obvious reason besides the convenience of the plot.

While Doyle gave us a Lost World full of many exotic and extinct beasts, the Lost Land has "dinos", big herbaceous dinosaurs described as living in the swamp, "teros", pterodactyls, and "muros", Murian monkey-men. That's all. More modern beasts are mentioned but hardly encountered, just avoided. There is some fancy Murian technology as well. The Murians are said to constitute a missing link, but unlike Doyle, Williams provides one quite unconvincing in the role. The Murians are far too man-like and too monkey-like to have any place as a human ancestor. It is possible Williams was not clear on the difference between apes and monkeys.

Williams also does much to destroy his wonder world by the end of the tale and his hero and heroine are given a happy ending. Unlike Tarzan, one is not left wondering what happened next. However, the Internet reveals that there were two sequel stories of the mighty Jongor.

In the end, this reasonably good read merely looks pale when held up against the works it borrows from, not surprising when one of them is the magnificent Tarzan. For that matter, in a fight between Tarzan and Jongor, my money would be on Tarzan. He needed no extinct monsters to fight his battles for him.