Tarzan meets Stanley Wood, whose story of a powerful diamond called the Gonfal leads back toward the women warriors of Kaji and their enemies. Hypnotic influence, captivity and rival hidden communities turn the rescue into another expedition beyond the mapped colonial world.
The adventure is framed by the firearms, aircraft and expedition culture of the 1930s, but its central mysteries belong to Burroughs's lost-world imagination. The Gonfal and the rival communities of Kaji and Zuli draw Tarzan into a conflict where hypnotic power and political rivalry are as dangerous as the landscape itself.
The Gonfal’s power introduces psychological domination into a series usually driven by physical danger. Characters can be compelled without chains, making escape depend on resisting influence as well as defeating guards. The rival hidden communities extend Burroughs’s recurring interest in isolated societies whose strange institutions appear stable until an outsider disrupts the balance between them.
Louis L’Amour
97 books
Christopher Nicole
49 books
Colin Falconer
22 books