The final installment of Lin Carter's pastiche of ERB's Pellucidar is perhaps a redundant entry. The series could have been wrapped up after book 4 but presumably DAW required 5 books (as with the Green Star and World's End series) and so Carter contrives to continue the story.

Some characteristic sloppiness here unfortunately, the worst being a description of the brontosaurus as "the largest mammal that ever walked the world" (p19).

With the addition of the remnant of both a black African tribe and a German Afrika Korps unit, the underground world becomes as multicultural as Carter's previous imaginary worlds with hero Eric Carstairs bringing peace, love and understanding to the assembled multitudes before marrying his Cro-Magnon sweetheart and producing a son (whose name changes from one paragraph to the next - the deadline must have been bearing down by that stage). In other words, a typical 'they lived happily ever after' Lin Carter ending with a bit of preachiness thrown in to boot.

Passable Burroughs pastiche, but book 4 'Darya Of The Bronze Age' was the best of this particular series. ( )