Secrets Of The Nine - Lord Of The Trees!

The Lord of the Trees is one part of two which are together sequels to A Feast Unknown. The organization of this novel and its ACE Double mate The Mad Goblin is made somewhat awkward because they are two adventures which dovetail into one grand battle which is shared between the novels. It's all rather complicated and led me this time read the books in a weird way, bouncing back and forth between them to capture the flow of both narratives and how they link. (More on The Mad Goblin tomorrow.)

 

The story picks up some months (undetermined) after the events of A Feast Unknown and Lord Grandrith and his half-brother and ally Doc Caliban are waging their war against the Nine, an ancient cabal which effects humankind in secret and offers to its agents the secret of near immortality. Lord Grandrith is planning to infiltrate the caves in Africa which have long served as a base for the Nine, but his plan is interrupted by many attempts on his life. He is captured by an agent of the Nine named Murtaugh and dropped into a sheer chasm where he encounters an old ally, a beautiful woman named Clara, and a new one named "Dick". Dick it turns out is one of the apelike creatures that raised Lord Grandrith so many years ago but Dick was plucked from the wild as child and raised in civilization (rather the opposite of what happened to our hero). John Cloamby (Lord Grandrith's real name) doesn't know who he can trust but he does escape and he takes his two new companions with him to complete his mission. There is treachery and I won't say much more in order not to spoil the story but eventually Lord Grandrith ends up in England on the Salisbury Plain  at the site of Stonehenge where he hopes to end the threat of the Nine once and for all. 

The story is told at a breakneck pace, as if Farmer wanted the reader to complete the book in one sitting. There are no chapter breaks but there are shifts in location which do serve to key the book to its companion The Mad Goblin. Lord Grandrith is of course supposed to be a version of Tarzan of the Apes, but Farmer pushes the idea that Tarzan as we've come to know him is much to civilized and human to have been raised by another species. His version of the feral man is much more savage and less sensitive to the moral qualms of polite society. This book does not have the extensive sex scenes which its predecessor had but a reader can easily see where Farmer might add some if he so chose. A Feast Unknown was for adults only, this book is for all Tarzan fans - young and old. 

Rip Off