Book Review: Wings Over Talera

Wings Over Talera, by Charles Gramlich

I was introduced to Barsoom and the worlds of Edgar Rice Burroughs through Carl Sagan and NOVA. Holst's epic Mars, The God of War blared behind Frank Frazetta's gripping images of John Cater and Dejah Thoris battling alien monsters-it was fantastic, the only thing wrong with any of it was Sagan and his monotonous condescending tone of how there was no such thing ERB's vision of Mars, his science was ridiculous and Percival Lowell could not have seen any canals on the face of the red planet.

This from the guy who is asking me to accompany him on his spaceship of the imagination, no thanks, I'm gonna stick with the Sword & Planet stories, that's what I want to hear more about-which brings me to Charles and his Talera series.

Ruenn Maclang, a 19th century Earthman is mysteriously transported to a strange new world, he escapes slavery at that hands of a reptilian race and finds new love-that's book one that I reviewed last year. This is book two in the series and deals with Ruenn searching for his lost brother and a strange new threat to the peace that he and his own Taleran princess are about to enjoy. Treachery and twists send Ruenn reeling from fire to frying pan.

Molded akin to the best of my favorite pulp novels like ERB and Robert E. Howard, Gramlich's Talera books are not to be missed. His writing descriptions and action are par excellence, the kind of 'I wish I wrote that'. The creatures that inhabit the strange artificial world of Talera evoke both a mythic and Darwin gone wrong ethos, granting a familiar and exotic locale for our narrating hero. I highly recomend that if anyone has an inkling that they will enjoy the upcoming John Carter movie, they check out Charles work as well.

And without spoiling anything, the last line in Wings Over Talera is a killer for the setup of book 3: Witch of Talera.

Grab Charles books here