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Amazon Nights:: Classic Adventure Tales from the Pulps
When one thinks of the classic adventure-story authors of the pulp fiction era, H. Rider Haggard, Talbot Mundy, and Rafael Sabatini may come first to mind. But Arthur O. Friel's stellar contributions -- particularly his stories featuring Lourenco and Pedro, two workers on a rubber-tree plantation in the Amazon Jungle. Their adventures in the Amazon's mysterious back-country certainly deserve honorable mention. Here are tales of peril and last-minute rescue, brutal savages and men of honor, snake-worshipping armies and half-ape Lost Races-and many more! For in the shadows of the rain-forest, many evils lurk . . . human and otherwise! Features a new introduction by Darrell Schweitzer, eight short stories, and The Jararaca, a complete novel.
346 pages, Paperback
First published March 1, 2005
About the author
Arthur O. Friel
54 books4 followersDuring much of career Arthur Olney Friel was one of the bestselling writers of pulp fiction in the United States.
Born in Detroit, Michigan,Friel, a 1909 Yale University graduate, had been the South American editor for the Associated Press which provided him with real-world experience. In 1922, he took a six-month trip down Venezuela's Orinoco River and its tributary, the Ventuari River. His travel account was published in 1924 as The River of Seven Stars.
After returning from the Venezuela trip, many of Friel's stories were set in that part of the world. He remained a popular writer of adventure stories throughout the 1920s and 1930s. In the 1930s, his short stories began appearing regularly in the various pulp magazines. His stories were almost always set in Venezuela.
The 1920s were his most productive time as a fiction writer, with an average of 5 appearances per year in Adventure during that time. The thirties were less productive, but he still managed to have one or two stories every year published in Adventure, except 1937, when he had none.
He seems to have stopped writing fiction by the time WW2 came around. The decline of the pulps may have been a contributing factor.
Arthur O. Friel died in Concord, New Hampshire in 1959 at the age of 73.
Born in Detroit, Michigan,Friel, a 1909 Yale University graduate, had been the South American editor for the Associated Press which provided him with real-world experience. In 1922, he took a six-month trip down Venezuela's Orinoco River and its tributary, the Ventuari River. His travel account was published in 1924 as The River of Seven Stars.
After returning from the Venezuela trip, many of Friel's stories were set in that part of the world. He remained a popular writer of adventure stories throughout the 1920s and 1930s. In the 1930s, his short stories began appearing regularly in the various pulp magazines. His stories were almost always set in Venezuela.
The 1920s were his most productive time as a fiction writer, with an average of 5 appearances per year in Adventure during that time. The thirties were less productive, but he still managed to have one or two stories every year published in Adventure, except 1937, when he had none.
He seems to have stopped writing fiction by the time WW2 came around. The decline of the pulps may have been a contributing factor.
Arthur O. Friel died in Concord, New Hampshire in 1959 at the age of 73.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
August 4, 2019
This volume contains Friel's early Lourenco and Pedro short stories plus one novella, The Jararaca. They all appeared in Adventure, the leading pulp magazine for this genre, between late 1919 and 1921. As with most of his work, the setting is the Amazonian jungle of Brazil. And the two heroes, Lourenco and Pedro, who are featured throughout, are workers on a rubber plantation. But being born adventurers, or bush men, as they identify themselves, they are continually called upon to scout the immense property holdings of their employer, Coronel Nunes. The stories and novella are loosely connected, although they can be read independently with no need to worry about the earlier works.
But here is what I find intriguing about Lourenco and Pedro. Essentially, they are a South American reworking of the mountain men of the American West. They blaze new trails and pathways. They encounter new Indian peoples. And they are able to facilitate civilizational connections through their speaking of Portuguese, Spanish, various Indian languages, and English. They are twentieth century Brazilian versions of Jim Bridger or Jedediah Smith. Or at least it seems so to me. Friel, born in 1887 just as the American Frontier was coming to a close, likely grew up well versed on dime novels about the West and its adventure heroes. Once in South America as a newspaper editor, again, I am supposing, he heard stories and tales and found fertile ground to incorporate this American genre into an entirely new culture. Later, Friel would make his own adventure, exploring the Orinoco. Not much seems to be known about Friel, but I'd bet my last dollar this brief sketch of mine of his inspiration is pretty close to the truth.
The technique for the stories is a recurring one. Lourenco begins his tales, usually referring to the sighting of some demon, devil, or other mystical or mythological creature. Then, the flashback begins and the reader hears of how Lourenco and his explorer companion, Pedro, encounter the monster. It usually occurs through some mechanism that combines discovery, revenge, and rescue. In the process, the creature or demon reveals itself as either a false monster or something easily explained as nothing more than an exceptionally dangerous version of a natural occurring reptile or animal or some individual adopting the characteristics of the animal.
This latter point also allows Friel to give vent to his suppositions about biological evolution. He appears to be something of a Lamarckian. For the Indians and renegades he encounters are people who assume the characteristics of their environments. Tribes and individuals adopt the features of apes, snakes, and spiders. Some go further, seeming to be hybrid races.
Such an intriguing view of a land and time now gone forever. Friel managed to encounter it all while it was still a mystery. And the wonder of that encounter fills each page in an almost routine manner. Shadows along the shore hide canoes from discovery by enemies on Amazonian lakes that shimmer under the brilliance of a full moon at night. And underneath the placid surface, piranhas, alligators, and river snakes lie in wait. Meanwhile, one step from the canoe into the bush brings the chance of abduction, venomous bites, seductions, poisoning, and sickness. Danger abounds. Yet you long to experience it, if not in your own shoes then through the bare feet and arms of Lourenco and Pedro.
But here is what I find intriguing about Lourenco and Pedro. Essentially, they are a South American reworking of the mountain men of the American West. They blaze new trails and pathways. They encounter new Indian peoples. And they are able to facilitate civilizational connections through their speaking of Portuguese, Spanish, various Indian languages, and English. They are twentieth century Brazilian versions of Jim Bridger or Jedediah Smith. Or at least it seems so to me. Friel, born in 1887 just as the American Frontier was coming to a close, likely grew up well versed on dime novels about the West and its adventure heroes. Once in South America as a newspaper editor, again, I am supposing, he heard stories and tales and found fertile ground to incorporate this American genre into an entirely new culture. Later, Friel would make his own adventure, exploring the Orinoco. Not much seems to be known about Friel, but I'd bet my last dollar this brief sketch of mine of his inspiration is pretty close to the truth.
The technique for the stories is a recurring one. Lourenco begins his tales, usually referring to the sighting of some demon, devil, or other mystical or mythological creature. Then, the flashback begins and the reader hears of how Lourenco and his explorer companion, Pedro, encounter the monster. It usually occurs through some mechanism that combines discovery, revenge, and rescue. In the process, the creature or demon reveals itself as either a false monster or something easily explained as nothing more than an exceptionally dangerous version of a natural occurring reptile or animal or some individual adopting the characteristics of the animal.
This latter point also allows Friel to give vent to his suppositions about biological evolution. He appears to be something of a Lamarckian. For the Indians and renegades he encounters are people who assume the characteristics of their environments. Tribes and individuals adopt the features of apes, snakes, and spiders. Some go further, seeming to be hybrid races.
Such an intriguing view of a land and time now gone forever. Friel managed to encounter it all while it was still a mystery. And the wonder of that encounter fills each page in an almost routine manner. Shadows along the shore hide canoes from discovery by enemies on Amazonian lakes that shimmer under the brilliance of a full moon at night. And underneath the placid surface, piranhas, alligators, and river snakes lie in wait. Meanwhile, one step from the canoe into the bush brings the chance of abduction, venomous bites, seductions, poisoning, and sickness. Danger abounds. Yet you long to experience it, if not in your own shoes then through the bare feet and arms of Lourenco and Pedro.
October 18, 2015
No one writes adventure tales like this anymore; I could actually feel my pulse pounding faster when I reached the climax of some of these tales. Friel has just earned his place next to Robert E. Howard and Edgar Rice Burroughs by making the Amazon jungle as exotic and mysterious as the landscapes of Barsoom or the Hyborian Age. Not high literature by any standards, but this is the kind of storytelling that has made me a lifelong reader!
August 2, 2026
(1919-21) The adventures of a couple of lovable rubber plantation workers in Brazil, by the American Friel.
The question after exhuming one of these forgotten pulp writers has first got to be: was it worth it? I mean, aside from the historical and cultural context that makes the study of anything interesting, how are the works artistically? Or entertainment-wise?
“And soon the great green jungle, which has swallowed many better men, will blot out every trace of them, and only their evil name will live on for a little time at the headwaters of the Amazon, to die out at last and be forgotten. For that is the way of the jungle.”
Friel is a good storyteller. He comes from the Slightly Off school of suspense. Often he’ll be telling a tale, in which you are already on the alert because of the dangerous environment, and something will be Slightly Off. A character is acting funny. There’s a strange noise somewhere. Even if nothing ever comes of it, it’s a technique that helps keep up the intrigue. Other times he opts for surprise and excitement, rescues and revenge, and is adept at that too. He has an unadorned writing style which, if not versatile, hits almost no wrong notes in its register. The world of these pulp stories—deep in the Brazilian rainforest near the border with Peru—feels authentic, without trying too hard. The author isn’t parading his firsthand experience, thank God. And I’m a fan of any work written as a dramatic monologue, with a listener whose words and actions can only be inferred from the narrator. “My name, senhor?” Or “I was reminded of it as you were jumping away from that poisonous spider.” Lourenço is like the South American version of the barfly in Camus’ The Fall. I’d love to track down who popularized this. They can’t all have been great Browning readers, much as I’d like to believe this.
“We disapprove of the mode introduced by Mrs. Radcliffe… of winding up their story with a solution by which all incidents appearing to partake of the mystic and the marvelous are resolved by very simple and natural causes…" —Walter Scott
I think there’s an inherent flaw in stories that go from the wondrous to the mundane, the irrational to the rational. Hound of the Baskervilles is good in spite of this. I’ve never read Ann Radcliffe, but apparently she specialized in the “explained supernatural.” Friel, with his menagerie of strange characters, doesn’t quite promise the supernatural, but still there’s a feeling of disappointment when his eerie, moonlit mysteries have a banal reveal (often some soapy drama). I should say that the endings are so sweet that I was always won over. I never got tired of seeing a character give away his prized rifle to the stranger who, at great expense, saved his life.
The spark of life comes through these tales intermittently, like the glow of the giant firefly, amid the competent yet more conventional stretches. I enjoyed almost all of them without thinking I’d ever read them again (generally the difference for me between a 4 and 5-star rating). Nevertheless I will miss Lourenço and Pedro and may seek out what the editors excluded here. Friel’s best decision was to make his series about a couple of friends—walking through the mysterious jungle, or paddling among the treetops, and whispering in the dark.
———————————————
Notes on the collection:
“The Spider.” 4 stars. Friel sets up a threat, which the reader can evaluate before the characters. Thus you are grateful towards Pedro when he cleverly figures it out, and begin to like him even more when, instead of being terrorized like everyone else, he mischievously turns the tables on the villain.
____
“The Peccaries.” 2.5 stars. Nothing bad but too long for such an unremarkable adventure/revenge story. Good last lines.
____
“The Firefly.” 3.5 stars. Poor little monkey.
____
“The Trumpeter.” 4 stars. Straightforward and very heartwarming. Cool idea, to have the trumpeter, dying alone, play Taps for himself.
____
“The Barrigudo.” 3.5 stars. You start to read these just to see good things happen to nice people.
____
“The Bouto.” 4 stars. Confrontation with a shape-shifting dolphin (not really). Harrowing. The end shows Friel’s tendency to tie his loose ends too much. I liked how all the money was given away to the bouto’s mother, though.
____
“The Ant-Eater.” 4.5 stars. The friends find a lovable oaf and decide to protect him from those who would rob him. Short and, again, very sweet. Another poor little monkey in this one.
____
“The Jararaca.” 3.5 stars. Some memorable scenes in this adventure that involves a poison tree, snakes galore, groups of cannibals drumming code to each other, and a fight to the death where one combatant is repeatedly attacked in the back by a snake. But about half the novella is logistics. Who’s moving upriver. Who’s moving back down. Where are the machetes?
____
“The Tailed Men.” 4 stars. Well written. Fun little face-off with a horrifying man/animal hybrid, played out amid lightning flashes. Turns into Darwinian horror dealing with a curious case of degeneration or de-evolution through bestiality. Closest Friel gets to Moreau-like levels of jungle weirdness.
The question after exhuming one of these forgotten pulp writers has first got to be: was it worth it? I mean, aside from the historical and cultural context that makes the study of anything interesting, how are the works artistically? Or entertainment-wise?
“And soon the great green jungle, which has swallowed many better men, will blot out every trace of them, and only their evil name will live on for a little time at the headwaters of the Amazon, to die out at last and be forgotten. For that is the way of the jungle.”
Friel is a good storyteller. He comes from the Slightly Off school of suspense. Often he’ll be telling a tale, in which you are already on the alert because of the dangerous environment, and something will be Slightly Off. A character is acting funny. There’s a strange noise somewhere. Even if nothing ever comes of it, it’s a technique that helps keep up the intrigue. Other times he opts for surprise and excitement, rescues and revenge, and is adept at that too. He has an unadorned writing style which, if not versatile, hits almost no wrong notes in its register. The world of these pulp stories—deep in the Brazilian rainforest near the border with Peru—feels authentic, without trying too hard. The author isn’t parading his firsthand experience, thank God. And I’m a fan of any work written as a dramatic monologue, with a listener whose words and actions can only be inferred from the narrator. “My name, senhor?” Or “I was reminded of it as you were jumping away from that poisonous spider.” Lourenço is like the South American version of the barfly in Camus’ The Fall. I’d love to track down who popularized this. They can’t all have been great Browning readers, much as I’d like to believe this.
“We disapprove of the mode introduced by Mrs. Radcliffe… of winding up their story with a solution by which all incidents appearing to partake of the mystic and the marvelous are resolved by very simple and natural causes…" —Walter Scott
I think there’s an inherent flaw in stories that go from the wondrous to the mundane, the irrational to the rational. Hound of the Baskervilles is good in spite of this. I’ve never read Ann Radcliffe, but apparently she specialized in the “explained supernatural.” Friel, with his menagerie of strange characters, doesn’t quite promise the supernatural, but still there’s a feeling of disappointment when his eerie, moonlit mysteries have a banal reveal (often some soapy drama). I should say that the endings are so sweet that I was always won over. I never got tired of seeing a character give away his prized rifle to the stranger who, at great expense, saved his life.
The spark of life comes through these tales intermittently, like the glow of the giant firefly, amid the competent yet more conventional stretches. I enjoyed almost all of them without thinking I’d ever read them again (generally the difference for me between a 4 and 5-star rating). Nevertheless I will miss Lourenço and Pedro and may seek out what the editors excluded here. Friel’s best decision was to make his series about a couple of friends—walking through the mysterious jungle, or paddling among the treetops, and whispering in the dark.
———————————————
Notes on the collection:
“The Spider.” 4 stars. Friel sets up a threat, which the reader can evaluate before the characters. Thus you are grateful towards Pedro when he cleverly figures it out, and begin to like him even more when, instead of being terrorized like everyone else, he mischievously turns the tables on the villain.
____
“The Peccaries.” 2.5 stars. Nothing bad but too long for such an unremarkable adventure/revenge story. Good last lines.
____
“The Firefly.” 3.5 stars. Poor little monkey.
____
“The Trumpeter.” 4 stars. Straightforward and very heartwarming. Cool idea, to have the trumpeter, dying alone, play Taps for himself.
____
“The Barrigudo.” 3.5 stars. You start to read these just to see good things happen to nice people.
____
“The Bouto.” 4 stars. Confrontation with a shape-shifting dolphin (not really). Harrowing. The end shows Friel’s tendency to tie his loose ends too much. I liked how all the money was given away to the bouto’s mother, though.
____
“The Ant-Eater.” 4.5 stars. The friends find a lovable oaf and decide to protect him from those who would rob him. Short and, again, very sweet. Another poor little monkey in this one.
____
“The Jararaca.” 3.5 stars. Some memorable scenes in this adventure that involves a poison tree, snakes galore, groups of cannibals drumming code to each other, and a fight to the death where one combatant is repeatedly attacked in the back by a snake. But about half the novella is logistics. Who’s moving upriver. Who’s moving back down. Where are the machetes?
____
“The Tailed Men.” 4 stars. Well written. Fun little face-off with a horrifying man/animal hybrid, played out amid lightning flashes. Turns into Darwinian horror dealing with a curious case of degeneration or de-evolution through bestiality. Closest Friel gets to Moreau-like levels of jungle weirdness.
July 11, 2017
Surprisingly good collection of South American jungle pulp tales. Pedro & Lourenco are a stalwart adventuring duo. These stories sweat with the steam of the jungle, full of intrigue, danger and menace. Flora & fauna are the least of the terrors the men encounter. Man is the keenest, meanest dweller of the jungle. Hot-bloods, murderers, mad men, cannibals and savages. Passion, murder, revenge, and betrayals.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews