Status
Available
Call number
Series
Collections
Publication
New York : Ace Books, [1975?], c1914.
Description
Short excerpt: For ten years no man of them had set eyes upon the face of the boy-king who had been hastened to the grim castle of Blentz upon the death of the old king his father.
User reviews
LibraryThing member StormRaven
Most of the heroes that Burroughs has created are cast into exotic locales: Africa, Mars, Venus, and so on. Barney Custer, the hero of The Mad King, gets to go to Eastern Europe. He also has to try to be a swashbuckling hero in twentieth century Europe, with World War I as the backdrop for at least
The story is set in the fictitious country of Lutha, a tiny European kingdom apparently located in the mountains bordering Austria and Serbia. Barney Custer is traveling there, visiting the native land his mother left to come to the United States before he was born. Barney gets caught up in a series of adventures stemming mostly from the fact that he bears an uncanny resemblance to the supposedly mad king of the country who has been kept confined for years by his uncle, the regent. In the first half of the book, Barney saves the king, restores him to the throne in the face of a nefarious conspiracy, and earns the wrath of the king he saved. In the second half, set during World War I, Barney saves Lutha from an Austrian invasion, tries (and fails) to save the king, becomes king, and wins the girl.
Barney is a decent swashbuckling hero, and his adventures are certainly loaded with derring do, but the book just doesn't seem to ever rise above adequate. Setting the story during World War I, when swashbuckling was consumed by the machinery of modern warfare is probably the biggest problem with the book. Custer is also supposed to be a superior swordsman, but he only uses that skill once or twice early in the book, after that, all of the battles feature revolvers or carbines, as if someone read the early chapters and pointed out how silly sword wielding heroes in the modern era seemed.
As I said before, the big weakness of the book is trying to set a swashbuckling hero in the middle of a modern war. The book was written in 1914, before the carnage of warfare in the industrial era had become apparent to those in the United States, so the book seems to have an odd unreality to its battles, with saber armed cavalry sweeping across artillery positions, and generals heading to the front to rally the troops, and so on. Everything in the book is all very romantic, and heroic, and ultimately, tragically innocent. Unfortunately, real history proved that people who try to swashbuckle their way across the battlefield get filled full of shrapnel and lead. Custer's story ultimately fails because he is set in the wrong era. There's nothing wrong with Custer himself, or his individual adventures, but the setting is all wrong, and the overall story never rises above average as a result.
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part of his action. The result is a tale that, while set in a more or less realistic setting, seems far less believable than John Carter's adventures on Barsoom.The story is set in the fictitious country of Lutha, a tiny European kingdom apparently located in the mountains bordering Austria and Serbia. Barney Custer is traveling there, visiting the native land his mother left to come to the United States before he was born. Barney gets caught up in a series of adventures stemming mostly from the fact that he bears an uncanny resemblance to the supposedly mad king of the country who has been kept confined for years by his uncle, the regent. In the first half of the book, Barney saves the king, restores him to the throne in the face of a nefarious conspiracy, and earns the wrath of the king he saved. In the second half, set during World War I, Barney saves Lutha from an Austrian invasion, tries (and fails) to save the king, becomes king, and wins the girl.
Barney is a decent swashbuckling hero, and his adventures are certainly loaded with derring do, but the book just doesn't seem to ever rise above adequate. Setting the story during World War I, when swashbuckling was consumed by the machinery of modern warfare is probably the biggest problem with the book. Custer is also supposed to be a superior swordsman, but he only uses that skill once or twice early in the book, after that, all of the battles feature revolvers or carbines, as if someone read the early chapters and pointed out how silly sword wielding heroes in the modern era seemed.
As I said before, the big weakness of the book is trying to set a swashbuckling hero in the middle of a modern war. The book was written in 1914, before the carnage of warfare in the industrial era had become apparent to those in the United States, so the book seems to have an odd unreality to its battles, with saber armed cavalry sweeping across artillery positions, and generals heading to the front to rally the troops, and so on. Everything in the book is all very romantic, and heroic, and ultimately, tragically innocent. Unfortunately, real history proved that people who try to swashbuckle their way across the battlefield get filled full of shrapnel and lead. Custer's story ultimately fails because he is set in the wrong era. There's nothing wrong with Custer himself, or his individual adventures, but the setting is all wrong, and the overall story never rises above average as a result.
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LibraryThing member jjmcgaffey
Weird and wonderful. It's very pulpy - action for the sake of action, and very unclear motives. There's one awful (awfully silly) scene near the beginning where they're each firmly convinced the other is mad - he with rather less reason than she. There's also some confusion about exactly how
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similar Leopold and Barney are - in the first half, she knows instantly that it's a different man, and Barney himself says the resemblance is superficial. In the second, she can only tell who's who by where he was wounded. Time seems a little flexible, too - Barney spends a week lurking after he crossed the border? But the Austrians were crossing as he was - did no one notice them for a week, then the previously-shown events happened? Whatever. It's definitely not one of his best, but it's a fun read (once I made it past the silly scene) and I'll likely reread it. I also now want to reread The Prisoner of Zenda (I've basically forgotten the story, but the gimmick is the same) and Andre Norton's The Prince Commands (because the interaction between the royal cousins is so different). Show Less
LibraryThing member DWWilkin
Being familiar with the story of the Prisoner of Zenda, when I picked this tale up in my teens, I thought it was a copy of that work. Little did I know that Hope's Zenda was copied in many places. Jack Lemmon and Flashie both live Ruritanian Romances and so wanting to research for a project I
We have our hero, visiting the land of his ancestors and finding that there are a great many evil machinations going on. But he is instantly caught up with a princess and falls for her so quick that this becomes the theme of the story. Even when we have the Austrians and Serbians poised against each other a in the entire last half of the book, the romance of our hero and the princess seems to me to eclipse the rest.
But no moment passes without action, including his escape from a firing squad. That the king he needs to impersonate in not only a coward but vindictive as well shows that our hero is the best of all choices for anything and that there is little need for him to even think of a role as Sydney Carton.
I think that there should be a renaissance of Ruritanian Romances now. The Mad King is a great place to start after you have done the Prisoner of Zenda. Well worth a read and then a reread some few years later.
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recently returned to this tale. Now available through the courtesy of Project Gutenberg for free.We have our hero, visiting the land of his ancestors and finding that there are a great many evil machinations going on. But he is instantly caught up with a princess and falls for her so quick that this becomes the theme of the story. Even when we have the Austrians and Serbians poised against each other a in the entire last half of the book, the romance of our hero and the princess seems to me to eclipse the rest.
But no moment passes without action, including his escape from a firing squad. That the king he needs to impersonate in not only a coward but vindictive as well shows that our hero is the best of all choices for anything and that there is little need for him to even think of a role as Sydney Carton.
I think that there should be a renaissance of Ruritanian Romances now. The Mad King is a great place to start after you have done the Prisoner of Zenda. Well worth a read and then a reread some few years later.
Show Less
LibraryThing member DWWilkin
Being familiar with the story of the Prisoner of Zenda, when I picked this tale up in my teens, I thought it was a copy of that work. Little did I know that Hope's Zenda was copied in many places. Jack Lemmon and Flashie both live Ruritanian Romances and so wanting to research for a project I
We have our hero, visiting the land of his ancestors and finding that there are a great many evil machinations going on. But he is instantly caught up with a princess and falls for her so quick that this becomes the theme of the story. Even when we have the Austrians and Serbians poised against each other a in the entire last half of the book, the romance of our hero and the princess seems to me to eclipse the rest.
But no moment passes without action, including his escape from a firing squad. That the king he needs to impersonate in not only a coward but vindictive as well shows that our hero is the best of all choices for anything and that there is little need for him to even think of a role as Sydney Carton.
I think that there should be a renaissance of Ruritanian Romances now. The Mad King is a great place to start after you have done the Prisoner of Zenda. Well worth a read and then a reread some few years later.
Show More
recently returned to this tale. Now available through the courtesy of Project Gutenberg for free.We have our hero, visiting the land of his ancestors and finding that there are a great many evil machinations going on. But he is instantly caught up with a princess and falls for her so quick that this becomes the theme of the story. Even when we have the Austrians and Serbians poised against each other a in the entire last half of the book, the romance of our hero and the princess seems to me to eclipse the rest.
But no moment passes without action, including his escape from a firing squad. That the king he needs to impersonate in not only a coward but vindictive as well shows that our hero is the best of all choices for anything and that there is little need for him to even think of a role as Sydney Carton.
I think that there should be a renaissance of Ruritanian Romances now. The Mad King is a great place to start after you have done the Prisoner of Zenda. Well worth a read and then a reread some few years later.
Show Less
LibraryThing member brone
Nice easy read
Language
Original publication date
1914
1924-09-13
1925-06-04
Physical description
252 p.; 18 cm
DDC/MDS
| Fic Adventure Burroughs |