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Caspak #3
Out of Time's Abyss
This is the tale of Bradley after he left Fort Dinosaur upon the west coast of the great lake that is in the center of the island. About them upon the ground, among the trees and in the air over them moved and swung and soared the countless forms of Caspak's teeming life. Always were they menaced by some frightful thing and seldom were their rifles cool, yet even in the brief time they had dwelt upon Caprona they had become callous to danger, so that they swung along laughing and chatting like soldiers on a summer hike.
116 pages, Paperback
First published November 1, 1918
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903 people want to read
About the author
Edgar Rice Burroughs
2,693 books2,731 followersEdgar Rice Burroughs was an American author, best known for his creation of the jungle hero Tarzan and the heroic John Carter, although he produced works in many genres.
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July 13, 2022
Every book in the Caspak Trilogy is told from a different point of view. The first was about first contact with the inhabitants of an unexplored island by Westerners on a commandeered German U-boat. The second concerned the rescue crew that comes later to find the survivors.
"Out of Time's Abyss," the third entry of the series, involves a separate party from the first group of survivors. The German sailors of the U-boat have betrayed the others and supposedly left them for dead on Caspak. One scouting party of five who have been wandering the jungle have discovered too late that the Germans have left, even shelling their little fort for good measure as a parting gesture. The five men are then slowly picked off by the deadly prehistoric carnivores on the island, including a T-Rex and a sabertooth tiger. The leader is carried off by a flying humanoid and taken to a magnificent city isolated in the center of a large lake. But as advanced as these creatures are, they're quite racist and don't treat who they see as lesser humans very nicely.
And so sets up the final installment of Burroughs' Caspak, a series of three short books with enough solid continuity to warrant the entire saga being republished in 1924 as one large novel entitled "The Land that Time Forgot."
How does this one stack up? Well, I actually think this is the far superior product!
The characters in this one have more personality than in the other two books in the series, though I was a little put off by the eye-dialect in which several of them spoke to represent Irish brogue. The book does a great job of tying up the loose ends of the first two, and the science fiction elements were quite interesting. I was pleasantly surprised at how gruesome it could get sometimes, as it has a fair share of gore. I found the depiction of the bat-people and their civilization to be sufficiently alien and captivating. We have much less caveman action and intrigue, which is fine by me. Victorian and Edwardian science fiction really overdid the whole atavism thing with their obsession over hairy and scantily clad savages or intelligent apes beating each other with clubs and stealing gorgeous women. This book is also more action heavy. Not that the first two were full of padding! But whereas the others took a bit of time to set up the story, here the reader is dropped right into the mayhem from page 1! And it never stops. The other stories might meander a bit with some mushy romance or inner reflections of a character, but this book is relentless insanity.
For all these reasons, I thought this book ended a rather entertaining but mediocre fantasy with a bang. But those of you familiar with Burroughs or with vintage sci-fi and fantasy will not necessarily find anything too unique here. For example, the bat people are kind of a staple in the history of the genre since the "Great Moon Hoax." No, I don't mean the conspiracy theory that Stanley Kubrick was hired by the U.S. government to stage the moon landing. I mean one of the first cases of actual trolling using information media for profit.
In 1835, the New York Sun published a series of articles on the supposed discovery by John Herschel (the guy who coined the word "photography") of life on the Moon. Along with numerous alien flora and fauna, the dominant intelligent lifeform was "Vespertilio-homo," or "Batman." The whole thing was admitted to be a publicity stunt to sell more papers and to satirize unscrupulous scientific claims which were rife at the time. But even after the Batmen were unmasked, they remained in the public consciousness through the Victorian era, likely because they harkened to archetypes of angels, demons, harpies, and other winged supernatural powers from the dawn of human consciousness. The hoax was mentioned in writings by Poe and Verne, and flying intelligent humanoid races featured in works like Bulmer-Lytton's "Vril: The Power of the Coming Race" and even Burroughs' own lunar adventure "The Moon Maid," both of which I've reviewed for Goodreads.
Also, lost race fantasies were a very popular subgenre in fiction, as were stories of living prehistoric creatures discovered in the modern age. If you like those kinds of things and have not yet read this series, you should get on it.
Despite the lack of originality here, I think these are some classic adventures worth reading, and "Out of Time's Abyss" is the strongest of the trilogy. So take a trip to the land that time forgot. You don't need a yacht, an airplane, or a U-boat--just your imagination and a child's heart.
"Out of Time's Abyss," the third entry of the series, involves a separate party from the first group of survivors. The German sailors of the U-boat have betrayed the others and supposedly left them for dead on Caspak. One scouting party of five who have been wandering the jungle have discovered too late that the Germans have left, even shelling their little fort for good measure as a parting gesture. The five men are then slowly picked off by the deadly prehistoric carnivores on the island, including a T-Rex and a sabertooth tiger. The leader is carried off by a flying humanoid and taken to a magnificent city isolated in the center of a large lake. But as advanced as these creatures are, they're quite racist and don't treat who they see as lesser humans very nicely.
And so sets up the final installment of Burroughs' Caspak, a series of three short books with enough solid continuity to warrant the entire saga being republished in 1924 as one large novel entitled "The Land that Time Forgot."
How does this one stack up? Well, I actually think this is the far superior product!
The characters in this one have more personality than in the other two books in the series, though I was a little put off by the eye-dialect in which several of them spoke to represent Irish brogue. The book does a great job of tying up the loose ends of the first two, and the science fiction elements were quite interesting. I was pleasantly surprised at how gruesome it could get sometimes, as it has a fair share of gore. I found the depiction of the bat-people and their civilization to be sufficiently alien and captivating. We have much less caveman action and intrigue, which is fine by me. Victorian and Edwardian science fiction really overdid the whole atavism thing with their obsession over hairy and scantily clad savages or intelligent apes beating each other with clubs and stealing gorgeous women. This book is also more action heavy. Not that the first two were full of padding! But whereas the others took a bit of time to set up the story, here the reader is dropped right into the mayhem from page 1! And it never stops. The other stories might meander a bit with some mushy romance or inner reflections of a character, but this book is relentless insanity.
For all these reasons, I thought this book ended a rather entertaining but mediocre fantasy with a bang. But those of you familiar with Burroughs or with vintage sci-fi and fantasy will not necessarily find anything too unique here. For example, the bat people are kind of a staple in the history of the genre since the "Great Moon Hoax." No, I don't mean the conspiracy theory that Stanley Kubrick was hired by the U.S. government to stage the moon landing. I mean one of the first cases of actual trolling using information media for profit.
In 1835, the New York Sun published a series of articles on the supposed discovery by John Herschel (the guy who coined the word "photography") of life on the Moon. Along with numerous alien flora and fauna, the dominant intelligent lifeform was "Vespertilio-homo," or "Batman." The whole thing was admitted to be a publicity stunt to sell more papers and to satirize unscrupulous scientific claims which were rife at the time. But even after the Batmen were unmasked, they remained in the public consciousness through the Victorian era, likely because they harkened to archetypes of angels, demons, harpies, and other winged supernatural powers from the dawn of human consciousness. The hoax was mentioned in writings by Poe and Verne, and flying intelligent humanoid races featured in works like Bulmer-Lytton's "Vril: The Power of the Coming Race" and even Burroughs' own lunar adventure "The Moon Maid," both of which I've reviewed for Goodreads.
Also, lost race fantasies were a very popular subgenre in fiction, as were stories of living prehistoric creatures discovered in the modern age. If you like those kinds of things and have not yet read this series, you should get on it.
Despite the lack of originality here, I think these are some classic adventures worth reading, and "Out of Time's Abyss" is the strongest of the trilogy. So take a trip to the land that time forgot. You don't need a yacht, an airplane, or a U-boat--just your imagination and a child's heart.
June 25, 2022
In Book 1 of Edgar Rice Burroughs' now-classic Caspak trilogy, entitled "The Land That Time Forgot," we learn of how the mixed American, English and German crew of a conquered U-boat had discovered the island of Caprona, in the extreme South Pacific, and encountered the Jurassic monstrosities and primitive men who dwelt therein. In Book 2, "The People That Time Forgot," Thomas Billings, a close pal of Book 1's leading man, Bowen Tyler, Jr., crash-landed on the island during a rescue mission, and encountered the island's seven discrete human tribes, each one in its own evolutionary stage. That Book 2 had answered several of the reader's questions remaining from Book 1, but many still remained outstanding. Thus, the reader was still left pondering about what had happened to the U-33 after its German crewmen had slipped off with her, leaving the Americans and Englishmen to their fate. Were Billings and his Galu wife, Ajor, really intending to stay behind on the island? (The Galus, by the way, are the most highly evolved of those seven island races.) Were Bowen Tyler and his bride, the American Lys La Rue, ever able to make it back to Billings' yacht, the Toreador, on the other side of the island? And finally, what had happened to Tyler's second-in-command, Bradley, as well as the other four Englishmen who had disappeared during an exploratory expedition at the end of Book 1? Well, happily, not only does Book 3, "Out of Time's Abyss," manage to answer all these questions, it does so in a manner that is every bit as thrilling as the first two installments had been.
Like those first two novellas, "Out of Time's Abyss" initially appeared in the pages of "The Blue Book Magazine." Book 1 had appeared in the August 1918 issue; Book 2 in the October 1918; and Book 3 in the December 1918, its front cover sporting the blurb "A complete novel by the author of 'Tarzan'." I'm not sure if ERB himself ever really approved of that tagline, however, as he had long envisioned all three novellas as mere separate components of a single novel, and in 1924 he got his wish, when the Chicago-based publisher A. C. McClurg released the trilogy, for the first time, as a single hardcover volume. Today, readers can either purchase the three installments separately or as one volume, entitled simply "The Land That Time Forgot." Personally, my recommendation would be to go for the 1999 edition from Bison Books, featuring as it does all three novellas in one volume, a scholarly introduction by Mike Resnick, several useful glossaries, beautiful artwork by famed Burroughs illustrator J. Allen St. John, and a very helpful map of Caspak (the natives' name for the interior of Caprona) drawn by ERB himself in 1917. Truly, the definitive edition of this timeless classic.
But getting back to Book 3 itself, this installment centers almost exclusively on Bradley and his lost expedition, and wastes little time whatsoever in getting started. On its very second page, we witness the five men during the start of their hazardous mission, being attacked by a giant cave-bear, in a bravura action set piece that really starts Burroughs' book off with a bang. In perhaps the book's most chilling and atmospheric section, the quintet is visited nightly by a flying, corpse-visaged, robed entity, that the more superstitious of the Englanders deem a death-foreboding harpy, but whom the reader, after the events of Book 2, knows to be a Wieroo...the mysterious winged race that is the bitter enemy of the Galus, and that abides on the island of Oo-oh in Caspak's Great Inland Lake. Before long, the fears of the more fanciful of the men are realized, when one of them is killed by a T. rex and another by a saber-toothed tiger. Again, these events come as no surprise to the reader, who has already seen the graves of both Tippet and James, as discovered by Tyler at the end of Book 1. What does come as a surprising shock, however, is when Bradley himself is abducted by two of the Wieroos, and flown over to their City of Human Skulls on the island.
Thus, after just 30 pages, Burroughs has set up for us what will comprise the bulk of his novella, as Bradley, quite alone, on a hellacious island set upon another even more hellacious island, must figure out a way to escape from his captors. The Wieroos, who are only capable of begetting the male of their species, have been forced to raid the Galus for their few women who are capable of natural reproduction, kidnapping them, raping them, and holding them as slaves to function as mothers and nursemaids. Now, they have captured Bradley to learn "the birds and the bees" of natural male reproduction. But Bradley, tough English seaman that he is, is not so easily made amenable. On his second day of captivity in the bizarre Wieroo city--in which thousands of skulls decorate the buildings and form the very cobblestones of the streets--he manages to kill his abductor and take off into the mazelike metropolis. He soon befriends a young captive Galu woman named Co-tan (actually, we never learn the lass' name until the book's final pages, for some strange reason), who turns out to be of invaluable assistance to him. Bradley is soon recaptured, placed into a seemingly inescapable dungeon, escapes once again via a corpse-strewn sewer system, enters the city's holiest of temples, and deals very effectively with the Wieroo leader, a being only known as He Who Speaks for Luata. Along with Co-tan, Bradley later flees into the countryside of Oo-oh and hides out there for many months, until a means of crossing over to the mainland presents itself. But even after this lengthy ordeal, there is still the "minor matter" of those pesky Germans to contend with, and the seemingly impossible task of locating Tyler and Lys. Truly, Book 3 gives Burroughs' readers a lot of bang for their buck (or, in the case of "The Blue Book Magazine" customers, their 20 cents), and even manages to improbably end on a happy note to leave us grinning from ear to ear.
So yes, "Out of Time's Abyss" is quite the action-heavy affair, from its second page onward, and once Bradley kills his Wieroo abductor, in a tense little melee, the book really kicks into relentless high gear and rarely lets up. Unlike the first two installments, which had been narrated to us by Tyler and Billings respectively, Book 3 features an omniscient narrator (Burroughs, natch) who manages to answer all our niggling leftover questions and tie up all three volumes' loose ends with a neat bow. By the end of Book 3, the reader comes away feeling that he/she knows and understands Caspak a lot more now; that all its corners have been explored (all, that is, except for the dinosaur-infested southwest corner, which Billings avoided assiduously in Book 2). And we come away finally (sorta) understanding the complex evolutionary rules that govern life on the island, in a manner unlike anywhere else on the planet. (To be perfectly honest, I'm still a little unclear about some of the finer points regarding such, but that's just me.) As for those Wieroos, they make for fascinating, nasty, repugnant (wait till you witness their table manners!) and downright eerie villains, and Burroughs gleefully puts them on full display for most of his novella here.
As to the story's nonstop action sequences, ERB does indeed manage to squeeze in any number of doozies. Among them: Bradley and his men fighting off that giant cave-bear and enormous T. rex; the attempted nighttime kidnappings of Bradley's men by the Wieroos; the dilemma of Bradley being trapped in a dark prison with a starving and demented cell mate who's been driven to the brink of cannibalism, and who dares Bradley to fall asleep, all the while chanting "Food! Food! There is a way out!"; Bradley's prison escape down a river of multitudinous floating corpses; his audience with the Wieroo leader; the eventual escape off the island of Oo-oh; the marvelous battle with the Germans, featuring the ultimate fate of their nefarious leader, the Baron von Schoenvorts; and that marvelous happy ending. Burroughs also adds pleasing little touches here and there, such as that Wieroo dining hall, the byzantine architecture of the City of Skulls, and the maniacal paranoia of He Who Speaks for Luata. It's all tremendously exciting and fantastical stuff, and this reader happily gobbled it all up.
Of course, as in most Burroughs novels, some minor problems invariably do crop up, but there are fewer here than in most. For one thing, Bradley mentions at one point that the T. rex should have gone extinct 6 million years ago. Shouldn't that be more like 65 million? Toward the end of the novel, it's mentioned that two of the recently slain Germans would have to be buried...although three of them had just been killed! What were Bradley & Co. going to do with the third? And most egregiously, Co-tan, at the end of the book, is somehow aware that it was her brother who had been sharing a cell with Bradley...even though Bradley had twice decided not to mention the fact to her! Something odd there. And speaking of Co-tan, this reader could not help wondering why the author forbore to reveal her name to us until the very end. Ajor's, after all, had been revealed almost as soon as she met Billings in Book 2. And it also struck me as odd that Bradley here, despite traveling with the girl and even living with her in the wild for many months, should regard her like he would one of his male companions, only becoming aware of her femininity at the book's conclusion. But these are all mere quibbles that most readers might not even notice as they breathlessly keep flipping those pages.
And once that final page of Book 3 is turned over, those readers, I have a feeling, will be left wishing that Burroughs had given us a fourth installment, as well; perhaps one in which the existing state of affairs between the Galus and the Wieroos would have been resolved once and for all. As it is, we have this tripartite novel, and as a century of readers have learned long before me, it really is some pretty dynamite stuff. "Perhaps the most imaginative single novel Burroughs ever wrote," Mike Resnick tells us in his introduction, and this reader is very much inclined to believe it....
(By the way, this review originally appeared on the FanLit website at https://fantasyliterature.com/ ... a most ideal destination for all fans of Edgar Rice Burroughs....)
Like those first two novellas, "Out of Time's Abyss" initially appeared in the pages of "The Blue Book Magazine." Book 1 had appeared in the August 1918 issue; Book 2 in the October 1918; and Book 3 in the December 1918, its front cover sporting the blurb "A complete novel by the author of 'Tarzan'." I'm not sure if ERB himself ever really approved of that tagline, however, as he had long envisioned all three novellas as mere separate components of a single novel, and in 1924 he got his wish, when the Chicago-based publisher A. C. McClurg released the trilogy, for the first time, as a single hardcover volume. Today, readers can either purchase the three installments separately or as one volume, entitled simply "The Land That Time Forgot." Personally, my recommendation would be to go for the 1999 edition from Bison Books, featuring as it does all three novellas in one volume, a scholarly introduction by Mike Resnick, several useful glossaries, beautiful artwork by famed Burroughs illustrator J. Allen St. John, and a very helpful map of Caspak (the natives' name for the interior of Caprona) drawn by ERB himself in 1917. Truly, the definitive edition of this timeless classic.
But getting back to Book 3 itself, this installment centers almost exclusively on Bradley and his lost expedition, and wastes little time whatsoever in getting started. On its very second page, we witness the five men during the start of their hazardous mission, being attacked by a giant cave-bear, in a bravura action set piece that really starts Burroughs' book off with a bang. In perhaps the book's most chilling and atmospheric section, the quintet is visited nightly by a flying, corpse-visaged, robed entity, that the more superstitious of the Englanders deem a death-foreboding harpy, but whom the reader, after the events of Book 2, knows to be a Wieroo...the mysterious winged race that is the bitter enemy of the Galus, and that abides on the island of Oo-oh in Caspak's Great Inland Lake. Before long, the fears of the more fanciful of the men are realized, when one of them is killed by a T. rex and another by a saber-toothed tiger. Again, these events come as no surprise to the reader, who has already seen the graves of both Tippet and James, as discovered by Tyler at the end of Book 1. What does come as a surprising shock, however, is when Bradley himself is abducted by two of the Wieroos, and flown over to their City of Human Skulls on the island.
Thus, after just 30 pages, Burroughs has set up for us what will comprise the bulk of his novella, as Bradley, quite alone, on a hellacious island set upon another even more hellacious island, must figure out a way to escape from his captors. The Wieroos, who are only capable of begetting the male of their species, have been forced to raid the Galus for their few women who are capable of natural reproduction, kidnapping them, raping them, and holding them as slaves to function as mothers and nursemaids. Now, they have captured Bradley to learn "the birds and the bees" of natural male reproduction. But Bradley, tough English seaman that he is, is not so easily made amenable. On his second day of captivity in the bizarre Wieroo city--in which thousands of skulls decorate the buildings and form the very cobblestones of the streets--he manages to kill his abductor and take off into the mazelike metropolis. He soon befriends a young captive Galu woman named Co-tan (actually, we never learn the lass' name until the book's final pages, for some strange reason), who turns out to be of invaluable assistance to him. Bradley is soon recaptured, placed into a seemingly inescapable dungeon, escapes once again via a corpse-strewn sewer system, enters the city's holiest of temples, and deals very effectively with the Wieroo leader, a being only known as He Who Speaks for Luata. Along with Co-tan, Bradley later flees into the countryside of Oo-oh and hides out there for many months, until a means of crossing over to the mainland presents itself. But even after this lengthy ordeal, there is still the "minor matter" of those pesky Germans to contend with, and the seemingly impossible task of locating Tyler and Lys. Truly, Book 3 gives Burroughs' readers a lot of bang for their buck (or, in the case of "The Blue Book Magazine" customers, their 20 cents), and even manages to improbably end on a happy note to leave us grinning from ear to ear.
So yes, "Out of Time's Abyss" is quite the action-heavy affair, from its second page onward, and once Bradley kills his Wieroo abductor, in a tense little melee, the book really kicks into relentless high gear and rarely lets up. Unlike the first two installments, which had been narrated to us by Tyler and Billings respectively, Book 3 features an omniscient narrator (Burroughs, natch) who manages to answer all our niggling leftover questions and tie up all three volumes' loose ends with a neat bow. By the end of Book 3, the reader comes away feeling that he/she knows and understands Caspak a lot more now; that all its corners have been explored (all, that is, except for the dinosaur-infested southwest corner, which Billings avoided assiduously in Book 2). And we come away finally (sorta) understanding the complex evolutionary rules that govern life on the island, in a manner unlike anywhere else on the planet. (To be perfectly honest, I'm still a little unclear about some of the finer points regarding such, but that's just me.) As for those Wieroos, they make for fascinating, nasty, repugnant (wait till you witness their table manners!) and downright eerie villains, and Burroughs gleefully puts them on full display for most of his novella here.
As to the story's nonstop action sequences, ERB does indeed manage to squeeze in any number of doozies. Among them: Bradley and his men fighting off that giant cave-bear and enormous T. rex; the attempted nighttime kidnappings of Bradley's men by the Wieroos; the dilemma of Bradley being trapped in a dark prison with a starving and demented cell mate who's been driven to the brink of cannibalism, and who dares Bradley to fall asleep, all the while chanting "Food! Food! There is a way out!"; Bradley's prison escape down a river of multitudinous floating corpses; his audience with the Wieroo leader; the eventual escape off the island of Oo-oh; the marvelous battle with the Germans, featuring the ultimate fate of their nefarious leader, the Baron von Schoenvorts; and that marvelous happy ending. Burroughs also adds pleasing little touches here and there, such as that Wieroo dining hall, the byzantine architecture of the City of Skulls, and the maniacal paranoia of He Who Speaks for Luata. It's all tremendously exciting and fantastical stuff, and this reader happily gobbled it all up.
Of course, as in most Burroughs novels, some minor problems invariably do crop up, but there are fewer here than in most. For one thing, Bradley mentions at one point that the T. rex should have gone extinct 6 million years ago. Shouldn't that be more like 65 million? Toward the end of the novel, it's mentioned that two of the recently slain Germans would have to be buried...although three of them had just been killed! What were Bradley & Co. going to do with the third? And most egregiously, Co-tan, at the end of the book, is somehow aware that it was her brother who had been sharing a cell with Bradley...even though Bradley had twice decided not to mention the fact to her! Something odd there. And speaking of Co-tan, this reader could not help wondering why the author forbore to reveal her name to us until the very end. Ajor's, after all, had been revealed almost as soon as she met Billings in Book 2. And it also struck me as odd that Bradley here, despite traveling with the girl and even living with her in the wild for many months, should regard her like he would one of his male companions, only becoming aware of her femininity at the book's conclusion. But these are all mere quibbles that most readers might not even notice as they breathlessly keep flipping those pages.
And once that final page of Book 3 is turned over, those readers, I have a feeling, will be left wishing that Burroughs had given us a fourth installment, as well; perhaps one in which the existing state of affairs between the Galus and the Wieroos would have been resolved once and for all. As it is, we have this tripartite novel, and as a century of readers have learned long before me, it really is some pretty dynamite stuff. "Perhaps the most imaginative single novel Burroughs ever wrote," Mike Resnick tells us in his introduction, and this reader is very much inclined to believe it....
(By the way, this review originally appeared on the FanLit website at https://fantasyliterature.com/ ... a most ideal destination for all fans of Edgar Rice Burroughs....)
January 3, 2013
Originally posted at FanLit. http://www.fantasyliterature.com/revi...
In Out of Time’s Abyss, the last volume of Edgar Rice Burrough’s CASPAK trilogy, we learn what happened to Bradley, one of the adventurers we met in the first novel, The Land that Time Forgot. As we expected, Bradley has frightening adventures on Caspak, is nearly killed by lions, bears, tigers, dinosaurs, etc, and he saves and falls in love with a beautiful young damsel in distress.
In this installment, we meet the Wieroo, the most highly evolved species on Caspak. Their form and society isn’t at all what the American and European adventurers would have expected. We also learn the rest of the mystery of the strange evolution that has happened on Caspak. Since this is Earth instead of a fantasy world, it’s all too far-fetched to believe, but that’s okay because we weren’t really expecting or demanding more from a lost world story.
The plot of Out of Time’s Abyss could have been enjoyable, but its problem is that, except for the episode with the Weiroo, it’s nearly identical to the previous two CASAPAK stories, The Land that Time Forgot and The People that Time Forgot: white man fights prehistoric creatures and falls in love with the adorable native girl he’s protecting. At this point, the formula which has worked well before has become stale.
Blackstone Audio’s version of Out of Time’s Abyss was read by Brian Emerson who does a great job. The CASPAK trilogy was published in 1918 so you can find both a print and an audio version in the public domain.
In Out of Time’s Abyss, the last volume of Edgar Rice Burrough’s CASPAK trilogy, we learn what happened to Bradley, one of the adventurers we met in the first novel, The Land that Time Forgot. As we expected, Bradley has frightening adventures on Caspak, is nearly killed by lions, bears, tigers, dinosaurs, etc, and he saves and falls in love with a beautiful young damsel in distress.
In this installment, we meet the Wieroo, the most highly evolved species on Caspak. Their form and society isn’t at all what the American and European adventurers would have expected. We also learn the rest of the mystery of the strange evolution that has happened on Caspak. Since this is Earth instead of a fantasy world, it’s all too far-fetched to believe, but that’s okay because we weren’t really expecting or demanding more from a lost world story.
The plot of Out of Time’s Abyss could have been enjoyable, but its problem is that, except for the episode with the Weiroo, it’s nearly identical to the previous two CASAPAK stories, The Land that Time Forgot and The People that Time Forgot: white man fights prehistoric creatures and falls in love with the adorable native girl he’s protecting. At this point, the formula which has worked well before has become stale.
Blackstone Audio’s version of Out of Time’s Abyss was read by Brian Emerson who does a great job. The CASPAK trilogy was published in 1918 so you can find both a print and an audio version in the public domain.
September 25, 2019
The third entry in Burroughs Caspak trilogy introduces a new heroic main character named Bradley, one of the crewmen from Fort Dinosaur. Bradley, Tom Billings and Tyler Bowen, the main characters from the first two books, are pretty much indistinguishable anyway. The story has been building up to an encounter with the mysterious and predatory flying Weiroo people and when Bradley is captured he becomes a one-man action hero in his battle to escape from his violent captors and rescue a lovely native woman. Burroughs does a terrific job answering the unresolved questions from the first two books, and tying up all the loose ends. Great pulp action/adventure storytelling from a master.
March 24, 2015
I read this book when I was 12 and absolutely loved it. Yet strangely, I never did get around to reading the first two books in the series. Now I'm trying to read the first book, THE LAND THAT TIME FORGOT, since I got it for free on Amazon Kindle. So far it sucks.
This book seems to be the best of the three -- contrary to what other reviewers say. That's because it starts out where you're already in the world of the dinosaurs, and you can just roll into it, without having to waste dozens of pages explaining "how" a bunch of German U-boat men and cowboys happen to find themselves in dinosaur world. Because really, any explanation will just look stupid, won't it?
The other thing I like is that Bradley, the hero of this book, is a real stone-cold killer. The clown in the first book was a Jimmy Steward type ("aw, shucks, ma'am, I ain't never been around no pretty girls before") where this guy is a remorseless killer somewhere between Clint Eastwood and Charles Bronson. ("A stone killer is nobody's friend.") The only time he softens up is when he meets the girl, who's a dead ringer for Nova in the original classic PLANET OF THE APES.
This is such an awesome book -- maybe I can find this one on Amazon Kindle for free as well!
This book seems to be the best of the three -- contrary to what other reviewers say. That's because it starts out where you're already in the world of the dinosaurs, and you can just roll into it, without having to waste dozens of pages explaining "how" a bunch of German U-boat men and cowboys happen to find themselves in dinosaur world. Because really, any explanation will just look stupid, won't it?
The other thing I like is that Bradley, the hero of this book, is a real stone-cold killer. The clown in the first book was a Jimmy Steward type ("aw, shucks, ma'am, I ain't never been around no pretty girls before") where this guy is a remorseless killer somewhere between Clint Eastwood and Charles Bronson. ("A stone killer is nobody's friend.") The only time he softens up is when he meets the girl, who's a dead ringer for Nova in the original classic PLANET OF THE APES.
This is such an awesome book -- maybe I can find this one on Amazon Kindle for free as well!
May 1, 2020
Just a rehash of the plot line of the first two books sadly.
Guy meets girl, rescues her, falls in love. Sprinkle in some monsters. Done.
Guy meets girl, rescues her, falls in love. Sprinkle in some monsters. Done.
April 8, 2023
Probably the worst out of the trilogy; it's simultaneously a rehashing of previous tropes but also much more boring.
March 13, 2023
so I have now read the first and last of the Caspak trilogy and I have to say that although I am still to find in my collection volume number 2 I think I have not ruined the reading since this book tells the tail of a "lost" member of the party - no don't worry no spoilers its all part of the write up.
However I will admit that I am not sure I enjoyed this volume as much as the first as this one felt too predictable - maybe there are elements of this story I remember from elsewhere but I think a lot of it was due to the mystery already having been delivered in the first volume.
There was also an element of trying to explain everything - something I struggle with at times as by doing so yes you can help justify the stranger things but at the same time you lose some of the magic and mystery. For me in some stories its good not having all the answers - that said this was still a good 'ole romp which after all was written by the master and possible creator of the genre.
However I will admit that I am not sure I enjoyed this volume as much as the first as this one felt too predictable - maybe there are elements of this story I remember from elsewhere but I think a lot of it was due to the mystery already having been delivered in the first volume.
There was also an element of trying to explain everything - something I struggle with at times as by doing so yes you can help justify the stranger things but at the same time you lose some of the magic and mystery. For me in some stories its good not having all the answers - that said this was still a good 'ole romp which after all was written by the master and possible creator of the genre.
September 4, 2024
Creo que si el protagonista hubiera tenido más vida desde el principio, si me hubiera demostrado que era humano y que las circunstancias que afectaban a todo el mundo también lo hacían con él, talvez hubiera empatizado un poco.. pero no fue el caso. La construcción de la historia, del pasado, de esta sub civilización en Caspak, todo está bien. Está incluso lógica y congruente. Pero no puedo evitar pensar que fue mucho contar y poco mostrar... esperaba más para este cierre de la trilogía, como un personaje orientado más al de la primera parte de la misma.
July 14, 2014
The third and weakest entry in the CASPAK trilogy, OUT OF TIME'S ABYSS is too silly and implausible for readers to stay interested in all the world-building throughout. Burroughs should have just stuck with dinosaurs; instead, our hero is pitted against a race of bat/human hybrids with a convoluted evolutionary history that requires them to kidnap unwilling females in order to reproduce, and to become serial murderers in order to climb the social ladder. Our hero spends much of the book punching these creatures in the face.
And of course he rescues one of the kidnapped women, who immediately falls in love with him. And would it surprise you to learn that she is very buxom and loosely attired?
The thrills of this book are all very lazy, and Burroughs relies heavily on coincidence in allowing our hero to survive his various scrapes. That, and the stupidity of his adversaries.
The title OUT OF TIME'S ABYSS conveys a certain amount of gravitas, but, believe me, the book itself is a steaming bowl of corn cheese.
And of course he rescues one of the kidnapped women, who immediately falls in love with him. And would it surprise you to learn that she is very buxom and loosely attired?
The thrills of this book are all very lazy, and Burroughs relies heavily on coincidence in allowing our hero to survive his various scrapes. That, and the stupidity of his adversaries.
The title OUT OF TIME'S ABYSS conveys a certain amount of gravitas, but, believe me, the book itself is a steaming bowl of corn cheese.
May 1, 2016
The climactic finale of the Caspak trilogy, Out of Time’s Abyss is possibly the strangest, most creative, and most intense of the three books. Choosing an interesting and quite unexpected plotline, in this tale Burroughs follows the adventures of Bradley and his small group of men who had set out on an exploratory expedition in the first book only to disappear, their fate unknown . . . until now.
This was a great premise, although initially it took me a moment to remember exactly who Bradley was since I did not read all three books back to back. This novel deals especially with the mysterious Weiroos—strange winged creatures that ply the skies of Caspak, which were only hinted at in the previous books. In this tale there are some truly unforgettable scenes of fear and suspense, and the genre almost verges on horror with some of the intense visuals and situations that Bradley encounters.
The Weiroos alone make this book a worthwhile read, but throw in yet another of Burroughs’s seemingly endless line of beautiful and winsome female characters—in this case, the lovely Galu girl Co-Tan—and the charm of the story compounds again. Being the finale of the series, all the loose ends are tied up in a satisfying way, but you almost wonder if Burroughs could have extended Caspak into one of his long, endless series. Then again, maybe short and sweet is best! At any rate, this was a fun one—and quite a fitting conclusion to a fascinating and unforgettable trilogy.
This was a great premise, although initially it took me a moment to remember exactly who Bradley was since I did not read all three books back to back. This novel deals especially with the mysterious Weiroos—strange winged creatures that ply the skies of Caspak, which were only hinted at in the previous books. In this tale there are some truly unforgettable scenes of fear and suspense, and the genre almost verges on horror with some of the intense visuals and situations that Bradley encounters.
The Weiroos alone make this book a worthwhile read, but throw in yet another of Burroughs’s seemingly endless line of beautiful and winsome female characters—in this case, the lovely Galu girl Co-Tan—and the charm of the story compounds again. Being the finale of the series, all the loose ends are tied up in a satisfying way, but you almost wonder if Burroughs could have extended Caspak into one of his long, endless series. Then again, maybe short and sweet is best! At any rate, this was a fun one—and quite a fitting conclusion to a fascinating and unforgettable trilogy.
January 25, 2012
The third and final book of the Caspak trilogy, although I use the term 'book' loosely as each one is less than 200 pages. To be fair, they were originally serialized as pulp fiction, so it's not surprising that they are relatively short.
Out of Times's Abyss was never made into a movie, but it would make a decent one I think. One thing the book does do, is nicely ties into the other two books and brings the series to an overall conclusion at the end. The final explanation of the evolution process on the island of Caspak is quite interesting and inventive, even by today's standards.
Even though these were written in 1918 they stand the test of time very well. There are a few oddities here and there but overall I would put them into the 'classics' category.
All three books are available in the Public Domain, even as audio books, so no reason not to check them out.
As usual, my rating here reflects my overall enjoyment of the trilogy, not just this book. Alone, this would be a 3.
Out of Times's Abyss was never made into a movie, but it would make a decent one I think. One thing the book does do, is nicely ties into the other two books and brings the series to an overall conclusion at the end. The final explanation of the evolution process on the island of Caspak is quite interesting and inventive, even by today's standards.
Even though these were written in 1918 they stand the test of time very well. There are a few oddities here and there but overall I would put them into the 'classics' category.
All three books are available in the Public Domain, even as audio books, so no reason not to check them out.
As usual, my rating here reflects my overall enjoyment of the trilogy, not just this book. Alone, this would be a 3.
May 4, 2017
This is my favorite book of the Caspak series. It follows the excursion of a group of men who went exploring in the first book. One of them, Bradley gets kidnapped by a Wieroo, a winged man with claw-like hands and a dead man's eyes. He is taken as a prisoner to a small island next to Caspak where the Wieroos live. He learns they are a violent race of men who are decendants of the Galu, the highest form of human evolution. On their island, Bradley finds a girl and attempts to help her to safety.
Out of Time's Abyss has it all. It ties the other books together, it has romance and adventure and excitement. It is a satisfying ending to a fun series.
Read this book for free through Project Gutenberg: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/553/55...
Out of Time's Abyss has it all. It ties the other books together, it has romance and adventure and excitement. It is a satisfying ending to a fun series.
Read this book for free through Project Gutenberg: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/553/55...
June 16, 2015
I have always been a fan of Edgar Rice Burroughs. His writing is timeless and simple. His stories are born out of his imagination. However, I could argue the stories he shares with us (the reader) could easily be glimpses of worlds that he has been privileged to see and feels compelled to share with us. We should all feel honored by what he has shared with us over 100 years ago!
June 26, 2025
I have to say I wanted this book and this whole trilogy to be better than it was. That isn't to say I didn't still enjoy it, but I found pieces of it to be not as interesting as I would have wanted. As far as this specific installment goes, the first 2/3rds were excellent! I finally got the answers I had been looking for with this series and I feel like overall it was the most gripping part of the series in general. The latter third really lost speed for me, and knowing it was the finale bummed me out a bit. By the end the 3 adventures in this trilogy felt a little repetitive and the characters felt very similar. I still liked this series and this installment, but not as much as I would have hoped I would.
3.5 Stars for me.
3.5 Stars for me.
March 26, 2018
The concluding book from this trilogy is somewhat derivative, going beyond what is normal for pulp. In addition to the same problems as the previous book, this one takes highly questionable "evolution" to extremes - the female lead here was once an egg, then a tadpole, then aquatic lizard, ape, then human. Germans return in full villainy, but then this story was published in late 1918.
Taken as a whole, the series isn't bad - but isn't particularly good either. I would recommend reading just the first book, which comes to a fairly good conclusion with a few minor mysteries.
Taken as a whole, the series isn't bad - but isn't particularly good either. I would recommend reading just the first book, which comes to a fairly good conclusion with a few minor mysteries.
January 25, 2023
These books became a little repetitive. Considering when the books were written, I was not surprised at the sexist and uncomfortable words used referring to people of color, let alone the scientific errors, but constantly referring to the women as "little girl" got very annoying lol. I really liked the first one, enjoyed the second of the series and was glad the third was the last so I could be done.
March 21, 2020
Hardly any dinosaurs 😠
A bunch of evil winged men in robes tho 😏
Burroughs is like... such an absolute fuckboi.
A bunch of evil winged men in robes tho 😏
Burroughs is like... such an absolute fuckboi.
April 9, 2024
Este me gustó más que el anterior, en especial con las criaturas nuevas que mete
December 8, 2023
Ray Bradbury called this guy “probably the most influential writer in the entire history of the world because he gave romance and adventure to a whole lot of boys and inspired them to go out and decide to be special,” which is why I used Madison and I’s excess student loan disbursements to purchase one mid-level mountain bike, shoes with toes, no helmet, and several cans of jet black hair dye
June 9, 2020
3. This one is my least favorite of the series due to the Wieroo. I prefer wild beasts and hazardous terrain to their city and dark ways.
For the series overall, I know it is a product of its time, but surely women had to be offended of how they were portrayed back then.
Ralph Snelson did an good job narrating.
For the series overall, I know it is a product of its time, but surely women had to be offended of how they were portrayed back then.
Ralph Snelson did an good job narrating.
September 23, 2020
I had mixed feeling about this book. There were parts I liked; parts I was meh about, and I was wishing "for more" when it ended. It did move at a fast pace; it had that much going for it. It also picked up where the first book left off and explained what happened to Bradley and his team that went off exploring. I am not sure about the character development, though (not that the book was written with that in mind; it is an "adventure story," through-and-through). I'll figure out what I'm going to rate it once I reach the end of my review.
It was a good book, I guess; maybe not quite as "solid" as the first two books in the series, but still a fast-paced adventure. I liked that it told what happened to Bradley and his party . I did not like it enough to rate it 4 stars , but I liked it enough not to rate it completely as 2-stars. I would probably rate it somewhere between 2.7 and 3.1 stars, rounded to 3-stars. I liked it, but I was also strongly disappointed after finishing it.
It was a good book, I guess; maybe not quite as "solid" as the first two books in the series, but still a fast-paced adventure. I liked that it told what happened to Bradley and his party . I did not like it enough to rate it 4 stars , but I liked it enough not to rate it completely as 2-stars. I would probably rate it somewhere between 2.7 and 3.1 stars, rounded to 3-stars. I liked it, but I was also strongly disappointed after finishing it.
November 24, 2018
The Caspak trilogy closes with a story of yet another protagonist, a Brit named Bradley, and the answer to all the eerie mysteries about that island that time forgot!
The third-person yarn begins by showing the other side of some of the closing events of “The Land That Time Forgot”, namely what happened to the crew after the shelling of Fort Dinosaur by the German U-boat. Bradley and the rest are abducted one by one by the winged humanoid Weiroos, and soon Bradley is in the Weiroo city.
Edgar Rice Burroughs has his bag of tricks with him on “Out of Time's Abyss” and I was almost teary at seeing him put out such a tight trilogy. Hell, this might actually be more together than “The Moon Maid” trilogy on the whole! I might actually have liked this one better than the others in some ways since it's set primarily in the city of skulls, so jungle survival plays less of a role.
For the most part, the book is one big escape attempt, with the usual dose of romance, and along the way we learn all about Caspak. It's an evil city of skulls on an island ruled by flying demon men who wear robes with colors based on how much murder they do!
It seems like Burroughs knew that a slam-bang finish was called for, so he crams it in. I find myself wishing he'd given this same level of treatment to “The Red Hawk” or even “Warlord of Mars”. In effect, the trilogy is one whole work, I'm just still pleased as punch that there's a real climax.
On the subject of the two Amicus films, all the skull city stuff at the end of the second film was actually from this book. I guess they wanted to cram it all into two films.
As satisfied as I am with this, it's also frustrating because it shows what Burroughs can do when he plans his stuff out. It stands alongside “The Moon Maid”, the first three Barsoom books, and probably the first three Venus books, the difference being that it isn't tainted with additional sequels (although I'd read those if they existed).
The third-person yarn begins by showing the other side of some of the closing events of “The Land That Time Forgot”, namely what happened to the crew after the shelling of Fort Dinosaur by the German U-boat. Bradley and the rest are abducted one by one by the winged humanoid Weiroos, and soon Bradley is in the Weiroo city.
Edgar Rice Burroughs has his bag of tricks with him on “Out of Time's Abyss” and I was almost teary at seeing him put out such a tight trilogy. Hell, this might actually be more together than “The Moon Maid” trilogy on the whole! I might actually have liked this one better than the others in some ways since it's set primarily in the city of skulls, so jungle survival plays less of a role.
For the most part, the book is one big escape attempt, with the usual dose of romance, and along the way we learn all about Caspak. It's an evil city of skulls on an island ruled by flying demon men who wear robes with colors based on how much murder they do!
It seems like Burroughs knew that a slam-bang finish was called for, so he crams it in. I find myself wishing he'd given this same level of treatment to “The Red Hawk” or even “Warlord of Mars”. In effect, the trilogy is one whole work, I'm just still pleased as punch that there's a real climax.
On the subject of the two Amicus films, all the skull city stuff at the end of the second film was actually from this book. I guess they wanted to cram it all into two films.
As satisfied as I am with this, it's also frustrating because it shows what Burroughs can do when he plans his stuff out. It stands alongside “The Moon Maid”, the first three Barsoom books, and probably the first three Venus books, the difference being that it isn't tainted with additional sequels (although I'd read those if they existed).
September 10, 2013
Old ERB, you can still entertain 100 years later. Sure, you have some silly dialog and your books certainly don't often appeal to women but you write action scenes as well as anyone ever has.
Ray Bradbury said it well: "I love to say it because it upsets everyone terribly—Burroughs is probably the most influential writer in the entire history of the world," Bradbury said.
"By giving romance and adventure to a whole generation of boys, Burroughs caused them to go out and decide to become special. That's what we have to do for everyone, give the gift of life with our books. Say to a girl or boy at age ten: Hey, life is fun! Grow tall! I've talked to more biochemists and more astronomers and technologists in various fields, who, when they were ten years old, fell in love with John Carter and Tarzan and decided to become something romantic. Burroughs put us on the moon. All the technologists read Burroughs."
Ray Bradbury said it well: "I love to say it because it upsets everyone terribly—Burroughs is probably the most influential writer in the entire history of the world," Bradbury said.
"By giving romance and adventure to a whole generation of boys, Burroughs caused them to go out and decide to become special. That's what we have to do for everyone, give the gift of life with our books. Say to a girl or boy at age ten: Hey, life is fun! Grow tall! I've talked to more biochemists and more astronomers and technologists in various fields, who, when they were ten years old, fell in love with John Carter and Tarzan and decided to become something romantic. Burroughs put us on the moon. All the technologists read Burroughs."
November 10, 2023
By this third book we kinda know how things go: man gets lost in this new-but-old world, full of dinosaurs and weird non-evolved humanoid tribes, finds a female that is very damzel like and, obviously, needs all the help in the world, immediately falls in love and they make it through and live happily ever after.
Yes, this books are kinda repetitive... but also amazing!
The world building in this trilogy is spectacular. I love how complex the tribes are, the different scenarios they face, the animals... everything is very detailed. For me, what actually made a difference in me liking this trilogy was the fact the everything that was unsolved and unexplained in the previous two books, is perfectly explained here. This gives me a comfort that I cannot explain.
I discovered this books by chance and I am really happy I did.
Yes, this books are kinda repetitive... but also amazing!
The world building in this trilogy is spectacular. I love how complex the tribes are, the different scenarios they face, the animals... everything is very detailed. For me, what actually made a difference in me liking this trilogy was the fact the everything that was unsolved and unexplained in the previous two books, is perfectly explained here. This gives me a comfort that I cannot explain.
I discovered this books by chance and I am really happy I did.
March 3, 2015
By the third Caspak book, it is clear that Burroughs' heroes and villains are pretty cookie cutter. Brave hero meets native girl, they fall in love through their shared ordeals and they defeat the villains.
With that said, the strength of this story is the interesting society he develops with the Weiroos. Through book 1 and 2 there have been hints about the winged creatures, but in this book we finally get to see why the other tribes fear them and why they are heading to an evolutionary dead end. Their society, customs and brutality are fully explored as Bradley ( a character from Book 1) is captured and must make his escape.
Time's Abyss also raps up loose ends from the other two books and forms a definitive conclusion to the trilogy.
With that said, the strength of this story is the interesting society he develops with the Weiroos. Through book 1 and 2 there have been hints about the winged creatures, but in this book we finally get to see why the other tribes fear them and why they are heading to an evolutionary dead end. Their society, customs and brutality are fully explored as Bradley ( a character from Book 1) is captured and must make his escape.
Time's Abyss also raps up loose ends from the other two books and forms a definitive conclusion to the trilogy.
August 20, 2010
Not too bad, but not as good as the previous, and the same "Guy gets separated from group, fights his way through hordes of critters while falling for a girl" story is getting old. The first one had the awesome submarine sequence in it, the second one tried to mix things up with a character and look at the deeper cultures of the races of Caspak, but this one seems more like a rehash of the second book. It throws in the race of the Wieroo, but they seem too one dimensional, and a bit ludicrous at time. "SHUN THE BLUE!!!" Anyway, still worth reading if you don't take it too seriously and want to finish the series, plus its short.
March 5, 2021
Finally! Mercifully! Matrimonially! Tyler Jr. and his merry band of boat mates, and newly acquired bed mates, have escaped Paradise Lost and returned to the good ol' U.S. of A.
~~~~~~~~~SPOILER~~~~~~~~~
The highlight of the book occurs on page eight (free Kindle version) with Tippet's horrifically accented dialogue being written out of the trilogy.
~~~~~~~~~SPOILER~~~~~~~~~
The highlight of the book occurs on page eight (free Kindle version) with Tippet's horrifically accented dialogue being written out of the trilogy.
August 26, 2016
The final book in the Caspak trilogy answers the various questions raised by the first two books. Adventure as only Burroughs could do, with the usual array of improbable coincidences that Burroughs reveled in. A nice conclusion to the storyline.
August 24, 2013
Even better than the rest as the adventure rises to a crescendo
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