Robert T. Garcia

An odd mixture. Some stories read like ERBs I'd just never seen. Some were well-written but didn't strike me as being much like ERB - though most of those were written in worlds I haven't yet read, so it may just be that I was unfamiliar with his style in that world. At least one read like a savage parody of ERB, with wild coincidence and a lot of "love the one you're with" controlling the story. And a few were workmanlike attempts at an ERB story, but the quality was lacking - the middle Tarzan story, in particular, leans way too heavily on coincidence, as well as not feeling particularly Tarzan-like in style. And little lapses in logic like - can't get to the apes' dancing floor except through the tops of the trees, but a herd of elephants can show up with no problem or even a mention of broken trees, also detract. The first Tarzan story was excellent in its portrayal of ERB's style, though the story itself was rather pointless. And the last Tarzan - the last story in the book - was a mildly fun crossover (with footnotes, yet!), that wasn't quite up to ERB's standard of writing. I enjoyed several of the stories, but overall my reaction is "eh". Glad I read it, doubt I'll bother to reread. Though it may inspire me to read a couple ERBs - some old favorites and some I haven't read yet.… (more)

I picked up the “Worlds of Edgar Rice Burroughs” anthology for two reasons. One, I like ERB, and two, one of the stories is written by one of my favorite authors, Kevin J Anderson. This book was an enjoyable read and the authors did a great job with their stories in ERBs different worlds. I loved most of the stories. There were a couple of exceptions that were a little disappointing. “The Scorpion Men of Venus” by Richard A Lupoff where the Characters were at least in my opinion portrayed as very shallow, and “To the Nearest Planet” by Todd McCaffrey which started out awesome but the ending left me scratching my head. Anyway I thought it was a great collection and any ERB fan will love it. My favorite stories were which is hard because they were mostly all great was “The Forgotten Sea of Mars” by Mike Resnick, “Tarzan and the Martian Invaders” by Kevin J Anderson, and “The Dead World” by F. Paul Wilson. However other than the two I mentioned above I really enjoyed all of them.… (more)

While this is ostensibly gaming fiction — it was released as part of Mayfair Games's horror role-playing gameline, Chill — the word "ostensibly" is key. Most of the stories have very little to do with the game's few core elements, and some are little more than stories featuring the authors' previously existing characters or worlds that have occasionally been twisted to fit the mold — but only occasionally, and generally fairly obviously at that.

While I'm generally not a fan of gaming fiction, all in all this lack of consistency is one of the anthology's biggest weaknesses. The low-key horror of "Undertow" just doesn't fit next to the hardboiled pastiche of "The Terror By Night" or the urban fantasy of "Bluebound". The other biggest flaw is that a good portion of the stories are by either first-time or newer (at the time) writers, and sometimes it shows. Everybody has to get their start somewhere, but it's still a bit of an issue quality-wise.

While there are some out-and-out stinkers (Judith & Garfield Reeves-Stevens' "Bluebound" is the most obvious candidate), it's not all bad, in that there are still a few gems to be found: G. Wayne Miller's "God Can Be A Cruel Bastard" works well, as does Andre Norton's neo-gothic "The Silent One", and Charles de Lint's "But For the Grace Go I" offers a nice twist on a standard trope of the genre, but for the most part the entire collection is a bit thin on the ground.… (more)