THE ETERNAL LOVER
Review contributed by Doc Hermes ERB Reviews

This tale has Nu of the Niocene  (a sanitized caveman acceptable to our sensibilities) brought alive to the early 20th Century, where he indulges in the usual Burroughs shenanigans, falls in love with a Nebraska girl named Victoria Custer, tangles with African wildlife and eventually goes back somehow to his own time. The story first appeared in  ALL-STORY WEEKLY  in 1914, titled "The Eternal Lover" and "Sweetheart Eternal." Whoah. I can see why the editors at Ace decided to make a title change and go for the regular Burroughs fans but I sort of wish they had played this up as a romance. Keep the original title, have a cover featuring a Fabio-type dreamboat in furs, long hair and all, with young Victoria in modern clothes staring up at him adoringly. "He was like no man she had ever known," the cover copy would declare, "but could she trust her heart to this fierce savage from the dawn of time?" Then when the sales figures came back, the editors would weep and declare never again.

A few years ago, I cheerfully worked my way through the Tarzan series and found about half of them very good, the rest repetitious filler.  Before I got to the first book in the series, the reviewing frenzy left me (but then TARZAN OF THE APES has certainly been discussed enough over the last century). I didn't get to re-read this baby. Lord Greystoke does make a minor appearance here but he is very much in the John Clayton identity on his vast estate in Uziri land. So if you were looking for a typical Tarzan exploit, you'd be disappointed (although Nu certainly has his own wild, animal-slaying adventures). 

Doc Hermes