THE ETERNAL SAVAGE
by Edgar Rice Burroughs
An interesting, but short novel even by Burroughs' standards. The Eternal Lover chronicles the meandering adventures of two star (and time) crossed lovers: Nu, son of Nu, of the Niocene, and Miss Victoria Curtiss, a 20th Century American girl on vacation with her brother at a friend's plantation in Africa. Miss Curtiss is a long way from Nebraska and Nu is even further from home.
Did I mention the family friend is Tarzan? That makes this novel very tenuously connected to the Tarzan mythoi, and the Lord of the Apes does indeed put in a brief appearance. Even Burroughs himself is referenced once or twice as another of the house guests and the chronicler of this tale. That last role is a familiar one for Burroughs. I think only Clive Cussler outpaces ERB for an author inserting themselves into their books.
A tectonic upheaval somehow creates a physical rift in time, perfectly preserving Nu in a cave for thousands of years until another earthquake releases him into the 20th century. The rationale for the displacement in time is vague to ridiculous, yet Burroughs somehow carries it off as usual. The explanations are really just barely a sufficient amount of hand waving so ERB can get to the story. It isn't long before circumstance puts Nu on the trail of Miss Curtiss, the modern reincarnation of the caveman's lost love, the beautiful and plucky Nat-ul.
As the book's original title, The Eternal Lover, indicates, this is another of Burroughs's chaste science-romances, a precursor of modern space opera. Nevertheless, there is enough ape, bear, and tiger killing in this one to keep the most masculine of red-blooded readers' attention.
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