FORGOTTEN BOOK: WARRIOR OF THE DAWN

 Warrior of the Dawn by Howard Browne  (first published in two parts in Amazing Stories, Decmeber 1942 and January 1943; publishjed in book form in 1943)

A nifty little subgenre in science fiction and fantasy is the prehistoric novel, from J-H Rosny aine's The Quest for Fire (1911) and The Giant Cat (a.p.a. Quest of the Dawn Man, 1920) to Jean Auel's The Clan of the Cave Bear (1980), and beyond.  Many of the juvenile novels of this ilk, such as Irving Crump's Og stories (Og -- Son of Fire,, 1922, and sequels) were anachronistic.  A number of prehistoric novels merged the lost race theme with an Edgar Rice Burroughs-like Tarzan vibe, as evidence by the SF pulp stories about Toka (by Raymond A. Plamer as "J. W. Pelkie"), Hok (by Manly Wade Wellman), Jongor (by Robert Moore Williams), and Howard Browne's Tharn.

Tharn is a Cro-Magnon, living about 20,000 years before the founding of Rome.  "In appearance, Cri-Magnon Man was ruggedly handsome, both in figure and face...The female was considerably smaller than her mate...Possibly she was lovely in face and figure; we of today have no evidence to the contrary."  Tharn's people are cave dwellers.  Their weapons were clubs, crudely shaped flint knives, and spears; it is "entirely possible" that Cro-Magnons made use of rope.  Unlike the hairy Neanderthals, who, though dying out, shared the planet with them, Cro-Magnons  were possessors of "Leisure -- a period in which [they were] free to do things other than kill [their] enemies, hunt, and eat."

Tharn is twenty-two, the son of Tharn, the tribe's chief.  He is strong, smart. fearless, impetuous, and has a great knowledge of jungle lore.  He is the greatest and wisest hunter of his tribe.  One day, while Tharn and three others were on a hunt, his tribe was attacked by scores of enemies, leaving most of the men dead and Tharn's father with a severe knife wound in his back.  Anger and a thirst for vengeance lead Tharn to follower the invaders' trail at night, rather than wait for daylight with the rest of his tribe.  After some journeying, he comes across another tribe and, assuming this to be the ones who had attacked his people, plans to wreak his vengeance.  A young girl, Dylara, the daughter of the enemy chief, leaves her cave to gather fruit.  The girl is the loveliest creature Tharn has ever seen.  He grabs her and takes her further in the jungle, intending to bring her back to his tribe as his mate.  Along the way, they are attacked by strange men.  Tharn is knocked unconscious and left for dead.  Dylara is captured and brought to Sephar, a city of men who have advanced beyond the Cro-Magnon stage.  The city is ruled by Urim, whose own beautiful daughter, Princess Alurna, is both strong-willed and self-important.  Visiting Sephar is Jotan, an influential citizen of Amman, Sephar's mother country.  Jotan sees Dylara and falls in love with her; Alurna sees Jotan and falls in love with him; Dylara, who thinks that Tharn is dead, falls in love with Jotan.  Urim places Dylara, now a slave to Sephar, in the care of Nada, a Cro-Magnon slave who had been captured a decade ago; it turns out that Nada is actually Tharn's mother, and now mourns the supposed death of her son.

Tharn is not dead.  Eventually he recovers from his wounds and goes off the find Dylara, tracking her to Sephar.  Tharn, of course, has never seen a city before, but does not let that phase him.  He enters the palace in search, manages to arouse the guards, is captiured, and is thrown in a cell with other prosoners, incl;uding Katon, an emissary from one of the cities in Amman, who had earned the displeasure of Urim.  Tharn, Kotan, and the other prisoners are slated for the arena, where men and beasts fight to the death until only one survives -- in the entire history of the arena, the last one standing has always been an animal.  Jotan decides to ask Urim for Dylara later that day. Before he can, however, Alurna bribes a guard to take Dylana to a distant house (rumored to be haunted) and kill her.  Dylana manages to kill the guard and run off n to the jungle.  Jotan learns of Alurna's plot and rushes off to save Dylana, only to find the guard dead and Dylana gone,  Alurna finds that Jotan has gone to rescue Dylana and, with some palace guards, goes to stop him, but they are attacked by Urb, the leader of a roving band of Neanderthals; the guards are killed and Alurna is captured by Mog, a sullen Neanderthal who is struck by her beauty and runs off with her.  Vulcar, the head of the palace guard, takes his men to search for Alurna, leaving Urim relatively unprotected at home.  Urim's chief rival in Sephar is Pryak, the high priest of the God-Whose-Name-May-Not-Be-Spoken-Aloud, a monotheistic entity who both punishes and rewards believers willy-nilly.

So.  Dylara is lost in the jungle.  Tharn is imprisoned in a cell, awaiting a certain death in the arena.  Alurna is captured by Mog.  Pryak may be planning to overthrow Urim.  Nada believes her son is dead, while Tharn is completely unaware of Nada's existence.  Dylara and Alurna still love Jotan,  Jotan and Tharn love Dylara.  And each chapter seems to end in a cliffhanger.  How will things resolve themselves?

Resolve themselves they do, because Tharn returns one more time in Return of Tharn (Amazing Stories, three-part serial, October-December 1948, appearing in book form by Donald M. Grant's  Grandon Company in 1956, the fourth title released by this early science fiction book publisher).

Howard Browne (1908-1999), who hated science fiction, began in 1942 as a managing editor for Amazing Stories and Fantastic Adventures, assuming the editorship of both in 1950.  As editor, he quickly stopped publishing the cultish "Shaver Mystery" stories of Richard S. Shaver that were favored by his predecessor, and oversaw the transformation of Amazing Stories from a pulp to a digest format.  He left Amazing in 1956 to work in Hollywood, where he scripted three movies and wrote more than 125 television episodes for Warner Brothers (Cheyenne, Bourbon Street Beat, Bronco, Hawaiian Eye, Sugarfoot, Lawman, Maverick, 77 Sunset Strip) and others.  He is best remembered for his mystery novels, including the classic tales featuring private detective Paul Pine (most published under his "John Evans" pseudonym).

If you are a fan of purple prose, over-the-top descriptions, a mountain of coincidences, and an invincible hero, and don't object to a distinct lack of rigid logic in your reading, you may want to give this one a try.  Literature it ain't, but it sure is fun.