As someone who enjoys modernisations of most things, this Tarzan modernisation by Andy Briggs is definitely one to catch my eye. Tarzan-The Jungle Warrior is the second in a series that started with The Greystroke Legacy. Here, we have Andy to talk about his main female character...
JANE - THE WARRIOR QUEEN
Death, books and tea -
not only the title of this blog, but the three main ingredients that perfectly describe
Tarzan.
In reverse order: tea.
The perfect drink for an Englishman, after all Tarzan is the rightful Earl of
Greystoke. What a fitting drink tea is, and one he would have consumed by the
gallon in Edgar Rice Burroughs’ original books.
Books - Burroughs
wrote 26 Tarzan novels and a handful of other authors have been allowed to
continue the adventures of the character. Now, for the first time, I have been
allowed to reboot, re-launch and re-invigorate Tarzan for the 21st
century.
Death - Tarzan, the
pale-skinned merchant of death, has always stalked the pages, and the small and
big screens, as the dispenser of final justice. To face the wrath of Tarzan is
like staring the reaper in the eye sockets. There is no remorse reflected
there, only the cold glimmer of vengeance.
What a guy.
As we celebrate
Tarzan’s centenary, I saw the opportunity to unleash him on to a new generation
of readers. The first problem I faced was how much the world around us has
changed since he first leapt through the pages of The All-Story magazine.
We’ve had two world wars, countries have formed and collapsed, mankind has
fully developed flight (which the Wright Brothers had only cracked 9 years
early) to such a degree that we could now step foot on the moon. The more I
studied Tarzan’s original world, the more I realised our current one was in
fact the dystopian future we all feared. We are living it.
Imagine a world where
war criminals enact terrible crimes and flee into the depths of the jungle to
escape justice. A world where the environment is turning against us, yet we
still mindlessly hack down trees because money has become king (money which is
made from non-precious metals and woven linen, items of near zero-value). A
world were we mercilessly slay animals because we believe in medicines that
don’t work, and think disease-riddled meat is a delicacy - or a place where the
rich can have any innocent endangered animal as a pet if they wish. It’s a
stark world. And it’s the one around us at this very moment.
The first book, THE
GREYSTOKE LEGACY, Jane Porter is thrust into the dark heart of the Congo, armed
with the trapping of civilisation. Very swiftly she discovers that everything
we rely on, mobile phones for example, are quite useless. Our civilisation has
stripped away any skills we possessed to cope in the wild. Because for every
apocalypse that bears down on us, the themes of mankind surviving against the
elements doesn’t change and, even in the depths of the rainforest, survival
comes down to tooth and claw.
In order to survive
such and environment, Jane Porter had to change from the fragile, spoilt girl
she was in Burroughs’ original works, to a more contemporary figure. A girl who
could kick-butt with the best of them. I wanted my Jane to be the type of girl
who could survive not only the jungle, but a post-apocalyptic zombie attack,
should there be one. In the Greystoke Legacy, she is just finding her feet,
finding her independence. I didn’t want her to be swooning over Robbie Canler,
no matter how chiselled and good looking he is. Jane is a girl with a mind of
her own and she is not going to follow convention!
By the time my new
book, TARZAN: THE JUNGLE WARRIOR, begins, Jane has become proactive and determined.
While she has been awed by Tarzan’s skills and raw power, she now knows how he
thinks and proves herself as an indispensible ally who Tarzan must rely on as
he ventures out of the rainforests and into unfamiliar lands...
Through this line of
thinking, I discovered that Tarzan was a more relevant character now than he
ever was a hundred years ago. The world has changed, but for the better? That’s
an interesting debate. However, where Tarzan has become a role model for the
ultimate hero, the eco-warrior, so should Jane now take her place as his equal.
A Jungle Warrior in her own right.
