The People That Time Forgot (Caspak #2) (1918)

by Edgar Rice Burroughs

Tom Billings goes on a rescue mission to the prehistoric island of Caspak to rescue his friend, but when his airplane is downed by a pterodactyl, he must rely on the aid of a beautiful cavewoman to help him negotiate his way through the increasingly advanced human societies that inhabit the land.

 

I’ll always be biased in favor of this series.

 

One of my first memories of being totally lost in a story was curling up with an omnibus edition of the Caspak trilogy from the Science Fiction Book Club when I was twelve or thirteen. 

Rereading it many years later, I find that it holds up very well so long as you do not expect it to be more than what it is--a rousing pulp adventure with stalwart, capable heroes who are equal to any challenge.

 

Some readers do not look past the backward racial attitudes of Burroughs and other writers of his time. 

Whatever their personal views might have been, their stories functioned as uncritical reflections of prevalent opinions of the time. I can understand how, for some, that might tarnish the innocent fun that others respond to in these tales. However, I wonder if Burroughs, in this case, might deserve a little more credit than some would give him. 

Edgar Rice Burroughs (r)

Billings spends most of the story resisting his feelings for Ajor because he feels that she is inferior, even referring to her as a “squaw” at one point in his first-person narration. However, by the end of the story, he realizes how foolish he has been. The “races” of Caspak are mutually antagonistic and rigidly segregated, but this racial identity is fluid, with most individuals progressing from one stage of evolution to another. Race is an illusion in Caspak, just as it is in the real world.