MAHARS OF PELLUCIDAR

When scientist Chris West saw the video-screen image of a beautiful woman about to suffer a gruesome death in an unknown land, he didn’t hesitate to race to her aid by means of an experimental matter transmitter. Plunged headlong into a world of savage men and prehistoric beasts at the Earth’s core, the young ex-Marine would soon be fighting for his own life as a captive of the Mahars, cruel reptilian rulers of the inner world of Pellucidar. This was the first non-ERB novel about Pellucidar, published by Ace Books as a paperback in 1977! Now back in print, for the first time in hardcover, with new cover art and a bonus classic novelette Tarzan and the Land That Time Forgot by Joe R. Lansdale, first published in 2013. While returning from a trip to the Earth’s core, the O-220 dirigible is blown off course by a violent tempest that plunges it into the frigid ocean off the coast of primeval Caspak. Now Tarzan, along with Captain Zuppner and a Pellucidarian woman named Zamona, must battle for survival amid the mysteries and dangers of the Land That Time Forgot! John Eric Holmes (1930-2010) was the first writer after ERB to pen an authorized novel set in Pellucidar. He is perhaps best known as having written the popular 1977 Dungeons & Dragons Basic Set (also known as the Holmes Basic Set) which introduced an entire generation to the world of tabletop roleplaying games. In 1993 he was honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award from the ERB Chain of Friendship (ECOP). John Eric Holmes wrote a sequel to Mahars of Pellucidar called Red Axe of Pellucidar, the publication of which was blocked by the Burroughs estate, despite its previous authorization of Mahars. Ready for print in 1980, it only saw publication much later in a limited private edition issued in 1993. Both of Holmes’s Pellucidar novels have now been officially re-released by Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc. in 2022 in hardcover, paperback, Kindle, and audio CD as part of its Edgar Rice Burroughs Universe series.