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The Monster Men is a science fiction novel by American author Edgar Rice Burroughs, written under the working title "Number Thirteen". It first appeared in.
Table of contents
by Edgar Rice Burroughs
Monster Art by Jeffrey Catherine Jones. William Stout Art. Print on Demand Edition. Tom Floyd Art. Mark Schultz Art. Hermes Reviews This was one of Edgar Rice Burroughs' earliest books, written just after his initial explosion of intense creativity in which he created Tarzan, John Carter and Pellucidar in a little over a year. What really ruins it for me is that it sets up a fascinating dilemma for its two central characters and then undermines it with an abrupt twist ending which is not only disappointing but a real cheat. In fact, I have to wonder if the conclusion wasn't a last minute revision because the ending seems to contradict most of the story I had just read.
It's pretty lurid and over the top stuff. This is old-fashioned melodrama at its outrageous and blatant best, the way I like it. A research scientist named Professor Arthur Maxon formerly on Cornell University has figured out how to grow nearly human life forms in vats of chemicals. This was long before DNA was discovered, and there's no mention that Maxon might be using human tissue samples to start a cloning process or anything like that.
Nope, he just brews together an assortment of chemicals in coffin-shaped vats and lets them ferment and darned if they don't assemble into living creatures. You might ask a biologist how likely this is. Maxon is rapidly losing his mind from the overwork and world-shaking signicance of his discovery. He sails off to an isolated island not far from Borneo where he can carry on his experiments in peace without the pesky police asking about these freaky corpses produced in the course of his work. Maxon drags his luscious young daughter Virginia along with him for no good reason that I can see; he certainly doesn't pay any attention to her, and she has nothing useful to do on the island.
Virginia may be good-looking but she meekly goes along to live with her father and his crew on a jungle island halfway around with the world, not once even asking what he's up to. Later on, Maxon promises her hand in marriage no matter what she might think of it to his partner, the scoundrel Von Horn, as casually as if he was selling a used car. Well, the experiments run about as smoothly as you might expect, that is to say, like a double train wreck. Maxon produces twelve horribly disfigured and unattractive monsters of limited intelligence. We're only given a description of the first and most gruesome of them, the appropriately named Number One, as "a great mountain of deformed flesh clothed in dirty, white cotton pajamas.
Its face was of the ashen hue of a fresh corpse, while the white hair and pink eyes denoted the absence of pigment; a characteristic of Albinos. Each of the monsters, though, seems to be constructed a little bit better than the one before it, and Maxon keeps tinkering with the formula, hoping he will eventually turn out one that meets FDA standards and can pass as human.
Batman & the Monster Men
In the meantime, he has brewed up twelve of these unruly superstrong brutes that his assistant Von Horn keeps in line with the free use of a big bull whip. And Virginia, living in the same compound they built on the island, has no idea what's going on. Luckily, experiment Number Thirteen turns out to be a success.
The monsters join with Barunda and a crew of captive Dayaks and resume pursuit. Meanwhile, Saffir has bungled a rape attempt against Virginia and been shoved overboard by her; his lieutenant Ninaka assumes command.
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He stops at a native village, hides the chest and Virginia, and when Jack arrives conspires with Barunda to have the natives lead him astray. He then recovers his contraband and continues up river; Virginia ultimately escapes by diving off the boat. The latter, having survived his dip in the drink, flags them down. He and von Horn make a secret deal and continue up river without Maxon, who is stricken with fever. Jack's band, lost, encounters an orangutan band after fighting off more Dyaks.
Finding one of them has captured Virginia, they fight the apes. Von Horn, Muda Saffir and a group of native warriors happen on the battle and spirit off the unconscious Virginia; Sing Lee, following, sees all. Von Horn's group and Sing Lee go back to Maxon, who is recovering. Von Horn presses his suit with Virginia. Ninaka and Barunda fall out; Barunda is murdered, but this drives Ninaka ashore. Ninaka buries the chest lest it encumber his escape. Von Horn and a couple Dyaks, returned from delivering Virginia to her father, witness this. Afterwards von Horn kills his companions to keep the secret of the treasure to himself and flees back down river, narrowly missing Muda Saffir heading the other way with two war prahus ; Saffir has again abducted Virginia.
Monster Men | DC Database | Fandom
She escapes again and falls in with Jack and his surviving monsters; spotted by the pirates, they flee, one of the monsters dying to cover the retreat while Jack carries Virginia to safety. Making his stand in a small canyon, he casts boulders down on their pursuers until they retreat. He promises the girl he will take her back to her father, but soon after is stricken with a fever.
She tends him in his delirium. Maxon, von Horn, and Sing Lee search for Virginia, and come across the two just as Jack's fever breaks. Von Horn shoots Jack, but Sing Lee disarms him, stopping him from finishing him off. Then Sing Lee declares Jack is not a monster after all, but an amnesiac he had found drifting in a lifeboat and substituted for Maxon's failed experiment. He then exposes the crimes of von Horn, who flees into the jungle. An American naval vessel arrives; it turns out to be seeking von Horn, a deserter, to arrest him.
The pursuit finally ends at the site of the buried "treasure", which von Horn has dug up; his headless body is found next to the opened chest.
It had contained books, not treasure, and von Horn's native accomplices were evidently upset. The Maxons and Jack leave Borneo on the navy ship, and Jack's memory returns. He is conveniently revealed as Townsend Harper, the wealthy and single young man who took an interest in Virginia at the beginning of the book.
He may have devised the idea in late as a short story.
The Monster Men opens as good pulp should, on a moment of shock. Professor Arthur Maxon, an embryonic version of the Martian mad scientist Ras Thavas , is disposing of his latest failed attempt to create a perfect human through chemical means. He tells her to go play with her dolls, and for a moment readers believe Virginia is a child and the story will follow Maxon trying to protect her from the consequences of his experiments. But Virginia Maxon is a grown woman, and within three chapters Professor Maxon will switch to maniacal mode, seeking to have his daughter wed to the perfect outcome of his experiments, whether she wishes it or not.
Maxon flees the consequences of his experiments with a long sea voyage on the ship the Ithaca , then changes his mind and seeks out a Pacific Island where he can grow his chemical people in seclusion. His goal is a perfect human he will force into a marriage with Virginia. Maxon picks up another assistant, the young Dr. The speed of these opening chapters is typical of Burroughs, who jettisoned the long build-up common to the adventure and science fiction stories that preceded him.
The creatures are identified only by number, with Number Thirteen rising from the vat an outwardly perfect human specimen. Von Horn drives much of the action, simultaneously trying to obtain Virginia and the mystery chest. Bududreen, the traitorous first mate of the Ithaca , plots with the Rajah Muda Saffir to kidnap Virginia so the rajah can marry her. Although Muda Saffir sticks around for most of the novel as a principal albeit ineffectual adversary, Bududreen disappears during a storm and is never mentioned again.
These quick story detours and abrupt exits are scattered throughout the book, giving the sense of a more convoluted storyline than actually exists.
But The Monster Men is more about its characters and larger subject of the soul. But Bulan has the inner conflict of defining his humanity, specifically if he possesses a soul or not. His observation of the behavior of a man like von Horn and the actions of the other monster men gives him much to contemplate:. I am … curious as to how souls make themselves apparent.
I have seen men kill one another as beasts kill. I have seen one who was cruel to those within his power, yet they were all men with souls. I have seen even soulless monsters die to save the daughter of a man whom they believed had wronged them terribly — a man with a soul. How then I am to know what attributes denote the possession of the mortal spark? How am I to know whether I possess a soul? Bulan eventually latches onto the concept of love — his love for Virginia — as providing him a soul no matter his origins. The comparison between Dr. He has his moments of acting as a protector toward Virginia and feels genuinely concerned for her welfare before he starts sliding toward becoming the true man without a soul.