Last Stop for Ki-Gor

Over the last few days I finally finished the last unread Ki-Gor novella in my possession, Slave-Caverns of Molundu, and after setting it down I think I’m done reading jungle man adventures for a while. It wasn’t quite as good as the first three, and, as I’ve mentioned, too many jungle stories in a row kind of wear on me/emphasize the ridiculousness of the whole genre. This adventure started strong, but didn’t have as much variety or out-and-out weirdness as the best ones. There were also occasional signs of hasty composition, like a word repeated too many times in a row.

On the other hand, it did have a great, driving pace, the characters were suitably heroic, and there were strong action scenes. And as a final reward, there were occasionally paragraphs of great descriptive power. Like the following:

“All afternoon a rising wind had blown from the south, driving with it writhing cloud masses that struck and fought with each other in their dark anger. Now like some wounded and weary leviathan the mammoth sun turned form its day-long losing battle and bleeding red light over the depths of the sky, dove down through the attacking clouds towards the edge of the world and safety.”

I’m sorry, but that’s just pretty cool. Owing to the strengths, I think I’d grade it as a C+, with likely inclusion on my “best-of” list, just barely.

If any of this Ki-Gor talk has people curious about this stuff, here’s a link to a text version of one of the very best Ki-Gor stories, Beast-Gods of Atlantis. If you like it, then you’ll know that you probably ought to check out some more. And if it’s not your cup of tea, then you’ll know you’ve looked at the best of what Ki-Gor can offer and know that you’ve tried it at it’s best.

For previous Ki-Gor discussions on the blog, you can visit here or here.