"The Return of Tarzan" by Edgar Rice Burroughs

The first and classic part of Tarzan saga is the one that everyone remembers - Tarzan growing up in a jungle, raised by Apes and fighting his way around the wildlife, meeting Jane and so on. All the movies, cartoons and various media representations usually focus on this part of the story but its definitely not the only one - it success prompted Burroughs to write many sequels and even though occasionally he might have been sick of doing the same thing, it made his name familiar, his wealth enormous, his fame international. Apparently he also continued writing completely different adventure stories set in fantasy genre but so far I am not familiar with them. However racist and strange original Tarzan story might appear to modern readers, it was still exciting and enjoyable enough to continue my exploration of Tarzan universe so I decided to read some more. Although I am definitely sure that I read those in my childhood, I don't remember them at all.

"The Return of Tarzan" is actually far more exciting and adventure packed than its precedent - once Burroughs set the stage in the original story, now he just continued in the much better, far more polished style. For one thing, we were left with Tarzan silently leaving his beloved Jane in hands of another man and keeping the secret of his aristocratic background (and wealth) hidden from everybody. And what was than just casual but we today perceive as racist attitude towards other skin colors is not so obvious here - in fact, nomadic Arab tribesmen are described as brave and noble. This time around we find Tarzan in Paris enjoying highly sophisticated life, getting entangled with some nasty Russian characters, being employed as secret agent and ending up on shores of Africa - and this is just a beginning. It goes really a roller-coaster from here, with hidden mysterious city of Opar (whose ancestors are hinted to have been from Atlantis) and never ending action - its by far superior to first part, once the reader gets his head around the first part where Tarzan lives in Paris. Its really very enjoyable adventure novel so I immediately went on with a sequel.