From Angola to Tschai, from Metropolis to Pellucidar: books

NJINGA OF ANGOLA: Africa’s Warrior Queen by Linda M. Heywood looks at a 17th century ruler who fought a long resistance against Portuguese colonization and slave-trading, eventually establishing herself as a Portuguese vassal (as opposed to complete subjugation) through a mix of military action, diplomacy, religion (converting to Christianity accomplished a lot, though Heywood thinks it was a sincere act of faith as well as good politics) and effective spectacle — like many great rulers, Njinga knew how to put on a show.

Unsettling in showing that the African culture could be as brutal and ugly as colonialism and everyone on both sides thought nothing of trading slaves like currency. Also good on showing the complexity of the politics: at one point the Jesuits scotched a peace deal because they resented that Njinga had negotiated it through Capuchin priests. While European historians for decades portrayed Njinga as barbaric and oversexed she was a hero in both Angola and Brazil (the Portuguese shipped a lot of slaves there from her part of Africa).
Jack Vance’s Planet of Adventure quartet has Earth agent Adam Reith respond to a distress call from the planet Tschai only to be shot down at the beginning of CITY OF THE CHASCH. Tschai turns out to be occupied by several alien species and their human followers, plus the sinister native Pnume; humans independent of the aliens have developed the typical bizarre cultures of a Vance world. With no allies and no way to contact Earth, can Reith survive, let alone learn who downed him?

That first book was only okay but SERVANTS OF THE WANKH picked up considerably (and if you laughed at the title, you’re not alone). Here there’s much more emphasis on how Reith negotiates Tschai’s strange societies, more complicated by the number of them trying to con or manipulate him (it reminds me a lot of Eyes of the Overworld). When I first read this, I was stunned that the love interest from the first book wound up going homicidally insane, then dying (“What, she’s not his Dejah Thoris?”) but now I wonder if it isn’t more of Vance’s sexism — and the woman was so bland, she became more interesting when she went psycho.

DC UNIVERSE: Trail of Time by Jeff Mariotte is a spinoff Superman novel which opens with Clark Kent plodding away in a dystopian Metropolis under a red sun when he learns Lois has been murdered for investigating a shadowy figure named Vandal Savage. The Phantom Stranger and Jason Blood then reveal that this is an artificial timeline created by Savage, Felix Faust and Mordru which will soon replace the real Earth unless the heroes stop them with the help of Dr. Occult, Zatanna, Bat Lash, Jonah Hex, El Diablo and Brian Savage.This is very much a product of its late George W. Bush era in the dystopia’s military industrial complex (“Every time we defeat an enemy there’s always another one we have to start arming against.”) and some of its comics details (Phantom Stranger as a Lord of Order) but overall a solid job. However constantly referring to Brian as “Scalphunter” doesn’t work for me — yes, it was the name of his old series (discussed at the link) but he never called himself that and didn’t take scalps, so it comes off rather racist.

Edgar Rice Burroughs returns to the story of David Innes, Emperor of Pellucidar, in LAND OF TERROR, but unlike Back to the Stone Age it feels like he’s just going through the motions. Searching for Von Horst (the protagonist of the previous book), David winds up slave of an Amazonian tribe (wildly misogynist writing — Burroughs cannot conceive of gender equality so he assumes men in charge is better), then the prisoner of a tribe of lunatics who’ve also captured his empress Dian the Beautiful (ERB’s fondness for coincidence again) then later a prisoner on a floating island before things wrap up even more abruptly than in Tarzan at the Earth’s Core. Burroughs going through the motions is still more entertaining than many other writers but this is the weakest in the series. Fortunately I recall the seventh volume, Savage Pellucidar, as improving on it.

#SFWApro. Art top to bottom by HR Van Dongen, Jim Aparo and Jose Garcia-Lopez.