Billy Byrne

Mucker #1

by Edgar Rice Burroughs

Fantasy román, jehož hrdinou je Billy Byrne, původem pobuda z Chicaga.

Genres: Adventure, Fiction, Fantasy, Classics, Historical Fiction, Pulp, Action

208 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1914

About the author

Edgar 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.

Reviews

[Jim · Rating 2 out of 5]

I remembered this fondly & should have kept that vague memory. I didn't really remember much of the story, just bits here & there. Overall, it wasn't a bad story, but some elements of it were tough to take. While it was very well narrated, hearing the Mucker's (Billy) mangled version of American was tough to understand. Thankfully, there wasn't a lot of dialog nor was it terribly important.

A person's physical appearance is super important to their type of person, morals & such. I'm reading The Last Man by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley & it has a similar theme. Actually, there's a lot of similarity in the writing. ERB just makes his points a LOT faster, thankfully.

The Mucker has been raised where the worst actions (hitting or tripping women, stealing, & other violence) are the best. Once he is in the company of 'decent' people, he just naturally sees the error of his ways & becomes a sterling-hearted character very reminiscent of Tarzan (black hair, gray eyes, big, strong, etc.). His head is shaped well, with a high brow, & the lines of his physique are 'clean'. Obviously, a good guy who was just raised wrong & the whole story sets out to prove this.

The female, while a fragile ingenue, was surprisingly tough at times. Threatened with rape she steals her captor's sword, runs him through, & works on escaping. Several other times, she jumps in to the fray, too. Other times, she's carried when she should be walking. It is she who melts men's hearts & makes them good no matter how badly they've sinned in the past, if there is any good in them whatsoever.

ERB is known for his racism, but that wasn't a big deal here. The black cook got the same treatment as the other sailors. The headhunting Samurai were referred to as Chinamen by Billy, but he was a crude character. They weren't the most brilliant foes anyone faced, but bad guys are generally brutish &/or stupid in the ERB universes.

The romantic thread was just nauseating & ridiculous, but definitely sets up for the next book, The Return of the Mucker. I don't think Librivox has that recorded yet nor do I feel like digging it out to read it. I'm sure being able to skim the text is far better than any narration.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

Of the dozen or so ERB novels I've read thus far, THE MUCKER is my favorite. Where else can you get pirates, shipwrecks, Malaysian headhunters, Japanese samurai, and championship boxing all in one book?
In its opening chapters, THE MUCKER is actually quite literary and brilliantly written, though Burroughs can never keep that up for very long before reverting back to the purely escapist fiction he was famous for. However, the characters in this book are actually given arcs for a change, and there aren't nearly as many outrageous coincidences as you'd find in a John Carter novel.
The one thing that bugs me--REALLY bugs me--is the romantic dialog. I mean, talk about painful! Thank God it doesn't start coming into play until near the end.
Also, if you're big on political correctness and cultural sensitivity, you might want to take a pass on this one.

[Charles · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really like the development of the character here, Billy Byrne, a kid from the mean Chicago streets who learns a bit about heroism.

[Leothefox · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was attracted to this book because I read it was unusual among Burroughs' work and in pulp in general. For me, it did strongly echo aspects of “The Monster Men” and of course “Tarzan of the Apes”, although it does have the unique distinction of hanging multiple genre types on a single characters' arc. Billy Byrne, “The Mucker”, starts out as a street hooligan, becomes a sailor, a pirate, a jungle survivalist, and goes from there.

For Burroughs the sci-fi/fantasy element was strangely subdued. In the midst of various adventures, our protagonist and company encounter a lost civilization, but it's almost realistic and sober enough to be outside the realm of fantasy altogether.

Like everything in the vast Burroughs library, “The Mucker” is a romance. Byrne's relationship with highborn hostage Barbara Harding is the source of transformative torment and hope for our hero, who learns to be a decent person thanks to his experiences but is left wondering what his place is. It's a lot like Tarzan except with a hero from the mean streets instead of the jungle.

I got what I paid for: melodrama, steady adventure plotting, a good body-count, and dependable variance of setting. Two sequels are coming and I'm not skipping them.

[Kenneth · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Ballantine paperback edition that I read also contains the sequel "The Return of the Mucker". Billy Byrne, the main character is a mucker - i.e. a thug, who grew up on the mean streets of early 20th century Chicago, from a totally dysfunctional family, and surrounded by all kinds of criminal types. About to be framed for a murder he didn't commit, he flees to San Francisco where he is shanghaied into the crew of a pirate ship and ends up in the South Seas where he has to deal with headhunters and rescue a beautiful girl from New York who was on a ship the pirates had previously attacked.

In The Return of the Mucker, Byrne has returned to Chicago where he is arrested and convicted of the murder he had originally fled from. Escaping from the train carrying him to the penitentiary to which he has received a life sentence, he makes his way across Missouri, Kansas, and down to Texas and into Mexico. And who should be the owner of a rancho down there but the father of Barbara Harding, the girl he had rescued from the South Sea headhunters!

In spite of his mucker background, Billy Byrne is something of a superhero by the creator of Tarzan, John Carter of Mars, and others.

[Julie Davis · Rating 4 out of 5]

If what you like is pulp adventure from the turn of the 20th century (and I really do), then Edgar Rice Burroughs is your man. This one takes an interesting and unusual turn in telling about a man with no redeeming values whatsoever whose participation in a kidnapping leads to a change of perspective.

[David B · Rating 3 out of 5]

Billy Byrne transforms from a tough Chicago lowlife to an honorable man of action during a series of adventures in which he is shanghaied by pirates, battles samurai headhunters, and hides out from the law in Mexico, earning the love of a beautiful society woman in the process.

The edition I read included both “The Mucker” and its sequel, “The Return of the Mucker.” The first story is actually pretty interesting, with some good interactions among characters and an unusual Burroughs hero. He is an uncivilized brute who gradually questions his behavior by observing the actions of others. The second story features Burroughs’ penchant for depending on coincidence at its worst.

[Brendan Hough · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ear read 2025 (5hrs)
6.8/10 the start was well written for an antagonist and i was looking forward to see how this nasty guy from the mean streets was going to survive in his concrete jungle. But it flipped on big twist in the story, and kept on doing so again and again and i got used to the disappointments like the mucker becoming thick skinned to survive through his youth. How can i put it without spoiling it. He becomes better while he is better and so it gets worse. I wish edgar had kept the character as dog headed and more real. It pranced into the realm of stage show disbelief, and i feel the story could have felt more grounded as all the crazy adventures unfolded. Yes maybe we wouldn’t have liked the mucker as much. Maybe he was made to be that way in the story to be more relatable. But it makes him more forgettable because of that. Just another modern hero saving the day. I had to listen to the last 2 minutes twice as i was thinking “is that it? Is that where this ends?” But as it was made to be the first in a series it kinda makes sense. But at least felt a bit more realistic with him feeling in his place, due to nasty societal class divides. Kinda makes you want to root for the underdog in the last hurrah.

[itchy · Rating 4 out of 5]

eponymous sentence:
p4: When Lasky saw Billy he too opened his eyes in surprise, and when he came quite close to the mucker he whispered something to him, though he kept his eyes straight ahead as though he had not seen Billy at all.

I unknowingly read through both The Mucker and The Return of the Mucker as the copy I had collected both stories and presented them as a two-part novel. I didn't catch on until the end.

[Joey]

I

[Sean · Rating 4 out of 5]

For the midterm exam break I always used to read Burroughs, Howard and Lovecraft instead of studying, which I suppose helps explains my lack of academic excellence. This year, almost 50 years hence, I thought I'd give it another go, reading boys adventure stories for the Christmas season.

I had the Ace edition of "The Mucker" with the glorious Frazetta cover back in the day but had never actually read it. How many books I bought and never read back then solely for the Frazetta cover! If only this lovely reference had been available I would have saved so much money to buy comic books with.



As for this novel, I would rate it very highly in the Burroughs oeuvre. It's a bit like Tarzan from the mean streets of Chicago in that our hero is an extra-ordinary physical specimen who rises to modest heights in his particular jungle before he is shanghaied to a pirate styled ship with a kidnap scheme. Unlike Tarzan, the mucker is a true savage with no moral compass and a bent to cruelty. All this changes slowly, then all at once, after he meets his "Jane", the object of the kidnapping plot.

The story features fighting, pirates, romance and a lost island filled with headhunters and samurais (yet, samurais). The action is wild and woolly -- typical Burroughs fare told with the most outrageous purple prose.

"Never had he faced death in the courage-blighting form which the grim harvester assumes when he calls unbridled Nature to do his ghastly bidding. The mucker saw the rough, brawling bullies of the forecastle reduced to white-faced, gibbering cowards, clawing and fighting to climb over one another toward the lesser danger to the cabins.."

Lots of fun. Better by far than studying for that calculus exam.

[Kent · Rating 4 out of 5]

Billy Byrne, who grew up on Chicago's West Side, among the low-brow hoods and gangsters there, and is taught to idolize the same, and to wantonly beat up anyone not of his gang or class...including women, children and the "better" social classes...the educated and wealthy.
Along the way he has to skip town to avoid a frame-up by a fellow-crook, and ships out (gets shanghaied) aboard a tramp steamer. He rises above all the other crooks on the ship, and gets insulted by a young socialite who becomes a prisoner of the Captain and his Mates, as her "friend" sets out to rescue her and win her hand.
Billy can't account for the reasons, but he soon sets out to change his ways from that of a "Mucker" to one of the class that Barbara would respect. It's a tough challenge, and lots of adventure along the way, and the story is continued in the following books: "The Return of the Mucker" and "The Oakdale Affair", which introduces Billy to a hobo (with a love of the poetry of Knibbs and Service), a gallant heart, and one who becomes Billy's best friend!

[Christy · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are plots and action enough for several books here. Billy Byrne is “The Mucker,” meaning he's a thug, and he’s pretty awful in the first plot. He becomes a pirate who kills for fun. He admits he would even kill a woman, or just punch her in the mouth, if that suited his purposes. Second plot: He’s stranded on an island with his dream girl, and she reforms him. Third plot: He goes to New York, and then Chicago, where he’s a prize fighter, and of course he always wins. Fourth plot: He’s a hero of the wild West, or rather, wild Mexico, and of course the girl shows up again. This was written by the creator of Tarzan, and the non-stop action leaves your head spinning. I enjoyed it, though.

[John Reis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Billie Byrne is a thug, a thief, an enforcer, what, on the west side of Chicago was, in the early 1900s called, a ‘mucker.’ Accused of murder, he jumps a train to San Francisco. He is then shanghaied and made a laborer on a Pacific steamer.

The crew of the steamer have decided to kidnap Barbara Harding, from her father’s yacht and hold her for ransom. And then a storm hits the steamer, and Billie saves one of the crew and Miss Harding.

Over the next several weeks Byrne cares for Barbara and begins to change.

This is mostly expository. It works well in the beginning but bogs down midway.

[William Schmitt-Matzen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very good pulp read. ERB knows his subject and definitely conveyed the feel of the period. This may be harder for those readers from the 70's onward to fully understand and appreciate. Like all of ERB's stories, it is fast paced and action packed.

[Jon · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Burroughs novel where the hero doesn't get the girl? A Burroughs novel where the protagonist is definitely not a hero at the beginning? If it wasn't for the casual racism, I'd enthusiastically recommend this as Burroughs' best.

[Frank · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read this one in the 70s

[Ron Gilmette · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great dialouge, and story telling. The Mucker wouldbe quite the match for Robert E. Howard's Sailor Steve Costigan.

[R. Kent · Rating 4 out of 5]

Slow Starting but once it got going it was very good

[Kylearejay · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bullet Points:

*Great Narrator;
*Horribly Racist (the version I read was the original unedited version);
*Interesting Ending;

[Michael D. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beat for beat, this is _Tarzan, Lord of the Apes_. I loved both books. the jungle in the beginning is concrete, but then the story moves to a literal jungle.

[Johnny · Rating 2 out of 5]

Inspired by the relatively new anthology of short stories, The Worlds of Edgar Rice Burroughs (in turn, inspired by the works of Edgar Rice Burroughs), I found an Ebook copy of The Mucker by the aforesaid ERB. The Mucker does not age well. Like some of the classic Robert E. Howard works, it is full of racial epithets (some of which, placed in the slang of the eponymous “Mucker,” were new to me) that often served to jar me out of my suspended disbelief. I think I was truly blind to just how racist mainstream society was in the earliest part of the 19th century. The protagonist in The Mucker even deliberately uses an anti-Italian epithet as an anti-Hispanic and anti-Native Mexican slur: “It ain’t never a mistake to shoot a Dago, … (Location 4603).

Perhaps, outside the plot in general, the most useful lesson in The Mucker is about the premature judgments we make on the basis of appearance and language. To be sure, this is a volume about personal transformation by an extreme effort of will (else there wouldn’t have been two additional books with the main characters), but it underscores the class consciousness of its generation in a very vivid way.

In the midst of the crudeness depicted within the dialogue and class prejudice, I truly enjoyed the use of unusual words and phrases within the volume. Devotees of Strunk & White would be horrified at the use of vocabulary such as “contumely” (Location 1294) and “avoirdupois” (Location 176, a term for weights and measures in English-speaking countries with which I was unfamiliar). Indeed, who could resist a line referring to the “supposititious purpose of the cruise” (Location 571). I enjoyed the biblical reference to the “evening and the morning were the third day” (Location 1545), quotations from cowboy poet Henry Herbert Knibbs (“’It’s overland and overland and overseas to—where?’ ‘Most anywhere that isn’t here,’ I says. His face went kind of queer. ‘The place we’re in is always here. The other place is there.’” –Location 3656)
My favorite line is the book is “…the eye-light of love and lust are twin lights between which it takes much worldly wisdom to differentiate.” (Location 846) This is an ideal phrase to use in discussing the main conflict in the book (indeed, judging from the Max Collins story in the anthology, it is the main conflict in all three books—though I’ve only read this one). The male protagonist is a tough from Chicago’s Grand Avenue gang culture of the early 20th century. His hostile, pugnacious nature gets him in trouble and he ends up aboard a ship of toughs in the midst of a piratical kidnapping scheme. The subject of the scheme is a New York City socialite named Barbara. Although street tough, mucker, “coward” as Barbara calls him, Billy Byrne initially despises Barbara and all her family and social class represents, it isn’t a spoiler to suggest that, in the course of the narrative, Billy will fall in love with her and save her life on many occasions.

The kidnapping leads to a shipwreck which allows for a mix of ERB’s jungle survival prose combined with an unexpected “lost oriental” theme. The latter was a surprise to me and I hope I haven’t spoiled it for potential readers.
Well, since the book is only halfway complete when the principals are rescued from the island (and this doesn’t quite work out the way one would expect), it is clear that this isn’t the end of the saga. Billy tries to make a life without Barbara, but even though he rejects her because it is the right thing to do (two different worlds, ya’ know, and also, apparently, a recurring theme), their paths cross again in a foreign country. Once again, Billy is thrust into the position of rescuer and would-be suitor, but he must intern for a time with a Pancho Villa rival in order to do so.

It was this latter part of the novel that offered the most incredulity to me as a reader. At one point, the bandito chief is convinced that Billy isn’t a gringo because his Chicago argot is practically a foreign language. At another point, Billy who only speaks a modicum of Spanish is able to negotiate a fine deal with his new “El Jefe” (the latter not ERB’s word). Yet, the entire section was a lot of fun because Billy was parsing rather precisely between his good intentions of going straight and his service of Mexico under command of this “general.” It’s an intriguing inner dialogue and more credible than some of the action scenes. Nonetheless, the action scenes are strung together like beads and, even though one knows largely what will happen, it is still interesting to see the beads come full circle.

Eventually, I’ll read the other two novels about these characters. As of now, I don’t feel any real urgency. My ERB appetite has been (probably because of the racism and classism) temporarily quenched and I’ll wait till I’m in another pulp adventure mood to trace down the other stories.

[Larry Piper · Rating 3 out of 5]

My dad said his favorite book as a child was The Warlord of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs. Burroughs is most famous for his Tarzan books. I read the first two of those. The first one was quite good, the second got a bit silly. My son, Zach, read further into the series, and said the silliness got rather out of hand—"jumped the shark", he said. Whatever, The Mucker came out in 1914, and deals with a young hoodlum who came from the tough parts of Chicago. My dad was born in Chicago and was eight when the book came out. So I thought perhaps in reading it, I might learn something about the environment in which my dad spent his early years. At some point, his family moved to a small town in southwestern, Michigan, undoubtedly not much like Chicago at all. Still, the early years in Chicago likely had some effect on his personality. Fortunately, my dad didn't grow up to be a thug, he was rather more of an intellectual than Billy Byrne, the protagonist of The Mucker, and had a professional career, as is appropriate for a college graduate, a class of people despised by Billy Byrne, but not at all by yours truly.

Well, the above is all mostly irrelevant. While the protagonist was born and grew up in Chicago, most of the book takes place in other venues. This is an amazingly silly book, geared primarily toward 12-year old boys I would guess. It's full of thrilling, but completely implausible and off-the-wall action. It reminds me a bit of the Hardy Boys, lots of exciting action that wouldn't make sense to one who had a shred of grounding in the workings of the real world.

So, we begin with a kid who grows up a thug in Chicago. He is what's known as a mucker:

[Muckers] were pickpockets and second story men, made and in the making, ... ready to insult the first woman who passed or pick a quarrel with any stranger who did not appear too burly. By night they plied their real vocations. By day they sat in the alley behind the feed store and drank beer from a battered tin pail.

He skips town to avoid a trumped-up murder charge, hopping a train to San Francisco. There he is shanghaied by pirates. The pirates kidnap a beautiful heiress from her father's yacht and carry her off to the south Pacific where they are shipwrecked on an island inhabited by samurai headhunters. Yup, you read it right. Some 16th century samurai landed on this island and intermingled with headhunters, and nothing changed for 400 years except the blood lines. Eventually, Billy and the heiress get saved, but not until after she has taught him to be able to speak in an educated and refined manner.

Then, the mucker, finds himself on the lam once again, in company of a poetry-spouting hobo. Of particular note is the spouting of the poem, Out There Somewhere by Henry Herbert Knibbs. Their ramblings and adventures closely mirror this poem. They end up in Mexico dodging bandinistas (revolutionarios?), sometimes collaborating with them. You guessed it, the beautiful heiress' father owns a ranch down Mexico way; she and her father decide to leave New York for a quick visit; they have problems with bandinistas; and Billy rides to the rescue, winning the heiress in the doing. Something like that.

So, if you like a dose of bizarrité with your adventure, and don't mind a lack of any semblance of realism, this is likely to book for you. If you're an adolescent male, or sometimes think like one, you're likely to find this book entertaining.

[wally · Rating 5 out of 5]

read this one...a few years ago. 1981-82 thereabouts. decided to read it again.

update 10/13: billy bryne, a product of the streets and alleys of chicago's west side....nothing about parents or siblings, just the ruff and tumble world of back alleys, a kindergarten that lasted from age 6 till 10 when he "commenced 'swiping' brass faucets from vacant buildings, his schooling a time of carrying a bucket of beer from the pub to the alley.

still though, he holds to a code of ethics...then he is shanghaied in frisco...the description of him waking up, at sea, is neat-o, the floor moving, a lamp swinging, the slow realization of where he is and a nice turn-of-phrase when the first mate puts him in his place--he'd never been spoke to before--"at least not since he had put on the avoirdupois of manhood."

another interesting phrase, "The Big Smoke"--I take it to mean ole Satan. Ha!

update:done:10/15...and that phrase, the big smoke, is actually some kind of allusion to either another work of burroughs and a character therein, who happens to be some sort of heavyweight boxing champion, as the phrase recurs later in the story

interesting story, billy bryne, from the mean streets of chicago's west side, shanghaied, a kind of reluctant pirate, shipwrecked...a girl is involved...heh heh! it's curious, that relationship that develops...was it mic and the boys? "she'd make a dead man come-om-om!" though that seemed to be the furthest from billy's mind...head-hunters and japanese that merged on the shipwreck island....trouble galore...eventual rescue...the girl changes billy.

once or twice, whuddayahcallit, the deuce coupe machina? descends and the head-hunting japanese samuri give up the chase, things of that nature...HA HA HA!

entertaining and yeah, even thought-provoking...as in, well, this was written in 1914, an engaging story...but i can't help but think if a horse had been involved, the horse would be tied to a tree, embarrassed by all the ricochets and the chariots of the gods, unable to turn tail to the camera and swat flies.

[Tim Deforest · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Mucker mixes together high adventure with the main character's redemption character arc. Billy Byrne grows up on the mean streets of Chicago, eeking out a living with small-scale robberies & muggings and taking pleasure in beer and bullying. When he's falsely accused of murder, he runs to San Francisco, where he's shanghaied aboard a sailing ship.

The officers and crew of the ship aren't any better than Billy and soon carry out a plan to kidnap an heiress off of a yacht. But different elements of the crew are also plotting to double cross each other. Then a storm wrecks the ship on a remote Pacific island, where they encounter a tribe of Japanese samurai (whose ancestors had fled Japan after a military defeat centuries earlier) who have intermarried with a tribe of headhunters and adopted the tradition of collecting heads. They capture the heiress.

Along the way, circumstances force some character growth onto Billy, so eventually he finds himself risking his life to rescue the girl and keep her alive.

The adventure aspect of the novel is great, with plenty of action ranging from trying to safely beach a damaged ship during a storm to sword fights with the samurai to a brutal boxing match that takes place after the protagonists return to civilization. Billy's character arc touches on melodrama, but in the end unfolds in a believable manner that generates sincere emotion. Themes of duty and doing the right thing even when this requires sacrifice run through the entire tale.

And the girl, Barbara Harding, is more than a damsel in distress. Like most of Burroughs' heroines, she does frequently need to be rescued, but she's no helpless wallflower. She kills a man who attempts to rape her with the man's own sword and later risks her life to take out a samurai who was getting the better of Billy in a sword fight. She's actually pretty awesome.

[Greg Frederick · Rating 4 out of 5]

I just love old pulp fiction adventure books. This was no exception, though at first I thought it might be. I can't really get behind a story if the heroes are jerks, and in this story the protagonist starts out as a jerk, but through his experiences becomes more refined and likable. The only fault I find in this book is that the ending was a bit more realistic than I would have preferred. However, that's just my preference, so others may be happier with the ending.

It was nice to read a pulp adventure from so long ago that actually gives the character the flexibility to grow as a human being throughout the adventure. In most of the other stories of this type I've read, the protagonist is either well developed but very set in his ways (Conan, John Carter), or is just one-dimensional (all too forgettable).

The story-line is just over the top in a great way. There's ghetto brawls, high-seas pirating, boxing, and even samurai headhunters! It is definitely a story of it's time, which means racial slurs and stereo-types abound, but if you are refined or blunt enough to get past that, you'll have a great time. I look forward to rereading this someday, and also can't wait to read Return of the Mucker!

[David Meiklejohn · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was in my collection of classic sci-fi. I'm not sure why as there's nothing sci-fi about it, except perhaps the superhuman strength of the hero. A ruffian brought up on the streets of Chicago, he gets kidnapped and put on a ship, helps plunder another boat, but is left on an island. A girl they captured from the boat turns his life around as she shows integrity and courage dealing with her situation, and we follow the two of them as their on-off affair takes them on separate paths that ultimately end with the two of them together, of course.

A good, old-fashioned adventure story, it does read as a bit racist in places, though you can sometimes excuse that as a product of our hero's upbringing. But it's good to get a fairly strong female character for a change, though she does need rescuing on the odd occasion.

[Alice · Rating 4 out of 5]

Book 4 stars, Illustrations 1 star

A fine adventure tale as only Edgar Rice Burroughs can tell. The hero is quite rough, uneducated and has a very bad attitude, not the usual noble gentleman. It is also set in contemporary times for Burroughs which is around 1914.

This edition was reasonably priced and worth it, but do not purchase it if you are interested in the illustrations. They are in a fuzzy black and white and show odd things such as a brass water faucet when the book talks about Billy stealing faucets. Another is the Golden Gate Bridge not when Billy is in San Francisco, but later when he is on shipboard leaving Hawaii??? Ignore the illustrations, read the book, the story is great.

[April · Rating 4 out of 5]

Actually what I read was the entire Mucker Trilogy, but there was no cover art for it... so I cheated a little! This story was not exactly what I expected, but it was a fun and crazy E.R. Burroughs ride just the same!... I mean seriously... how can you go wrong with medieval samurai, aborigine head hunters, mexican banditos, hoboes and wealthy heiresses?... An action packed quick and fun fulled ride! I thoroughly enjoyed watching the characters grow, learning their little secrets and hollering at them to not be so blind to their hearts. Although I only gave it four stars I would recommend it to anyone looking for an uplifting, uncomplicated quick read!

[John Lawson · Rating 2 out of 5]

Born to fail career criminal raised in the slums of Chicago is accused of a murder he didn't commit. Flight to San Francisco results in involuntary recruitment aboard a sketchy vessel at sea. Piracy, pugilism, and casual racism ensue.

This book starts strong, with promise of "Gangs of New York" style historical fiction, but when it shifts to the events at sea, it becomes preposterous and silly. Billy Byrne is basically a reworked Tarzan, replacing the African jungle for an urban one, so this book brings little new to a reader familiar with Burroughs.

The last chapters return to an urban setting and hint at a story that could have been much more interesting and relevant.