Edgar Rice Burroughs, man of mystery, who created fiction to reveal his passion for the truth about lost civilizations, Atlantis, hollow earth, and more. Though most may not consider Tarzan stories as science fiction, this one truly is, since Burroughs plants the seeds of forgotten civilizations in the context of his novel.
Excerpt:
IT IS SOMETIMES DIFFICULT to know just
where to begin a story. I recall an acquaintance of
mine who, in telling of an accident wherein a neighbor
had fallen down the cellar stairs and broken her
leg, would recount all the marriages and deaths in
the family for a generation or two back before getting
to the point of the story.
In the present instance, I might go back to Ah
Cuitok Tutul Xiu, the Mayan, who founded Uxmal in
Yucatan in 1004 A.D.; and from him on to Chab Xib
Chac, the Red Man, who destroyed Mayapan in 1451
and murdered the entire Cocom family of tyrants; but
I shall not. I shall simply mention that Chac Tutul Xiu,
a descendant of Ah Cuitok Tutul Xiu, motivated by that
strange migratory urge of the Maya and by the advice
of the Ah Kin Mai, or chief priest, left Uxmal with
many of his followers, nobles, warriors, women, and
slaves, and went to the coast where he constructed
several large double dugout canoes and embarked
therein upon the broad Pacific, never again to be
homeland.
That was in 1452 or 1453. From there I might make
a broad calendric jump of some four hundred eightyfive
or six years to modern times and to the island of
Uxmal in the South Pacific, where Cit Coh Xiu is king;
but I shall not do that either, since it would be anticipating
my story.
Instead, I take you to the deck of the Saigon, a battered
old tramp steamer awaiting at Mombasa to load
wild animals for shipment to the United States. From
below and from cages on deck come the plaints and
threats of captured beasts; the deep-throated rumblings
of lions, the trumpeting of elephants, the obscene
"
laugh"
of hyenas, the chattering of monkeys.
Softcover, 5¼" x 8¾", 150+ pages
Perfect-Bound