Dec 12
Tom Noir Comments: Balzan, when your B.O. starts knocking out dragons, it’s time to take a bath. And I don’t mean by licking yourself.
Published 1975
Tom Noir Comments: Balzan, when your B.O. starts knocking out dragons, it’s time to take a bath. And I don’t mean by licking yourself.
Published 1975
December 12th, 2013 at 10:05 am
How strange: “The Lights of Zetar” was also the title of an episode in STAR TREK’s third season… a not very good episode.
December 12th, 2013 at 11:10 am
“Which one of you said I couldn’t rock a miniskirt?”
December 12th, 2013 at 11:59 am
Looks familiar:
http://www.goodshowsir.co.uk/?p=4896
December 12th, 2013 at 12:48 pm
@Biblio: it amazes me that they were able to get two more volumes from this premise.
Is he attacking with a golf club?
December 12th, 2013 at 12:48 pm
Hey! Balzan’s back! But where are the cat people?
@Phil. Yes, Memory Alpha, the Trek Wiki, describes this book’s title as “apparently an homage”.
One way of looking at it, I suppose.
December 12th, 2013 at 12:50 pm
Yes @Bibliomancer, but in THAT cover Balzan is awkwardly threatening the moon, while in THIS cover he’s being tickled by a dinosaur.
TOTALLY DIFFERENT.
December 12th, 2013 at 1:19 pm
So, he’s raised by aliens on another world then?
An interesting premise which could produce a fascinating study of culture vs. genetics…
…but until that novel arrives, we’ll have to settle for the likes of Balzan.
December 12th, 2013 at 1:52 pm
Every time I look at the dinosaur frolicking in the corner, I burst out laughing. (Imagine his tiny arms waving enthusiastically.) Good show, sir!
December 12th, 2013 at 2:18 pm
You’ve all got it wrong that Dragon/dinosaur is dramatically sneaking up behind balzan!
December 12th, 2013 at 3:00 pm
@ Rachel J: given that the Trek offering, by the woman who brought us Lamb Chop, was itself the Salem Witch-Hunts in space (unless I’ve got it muddled up with a different one) that raises all sorts of rights issues as well as resolving Patrick Allen playing not-Tarzan-at-all with dinosaurs.
December 12th, 2013 at 3:51 pm
@ Lulu – agreed, there is something whacky about that dino.
His tail seems to have been filled with helium. His “wings” look way to bulbous and heavy for anything but battering his own body. He has these oddly shaped claws, almost like a chameleon AND he is supporting his entire MASS on one weak looking claw/hoof/foot!! He looks more like a badly drawn symbol from some obscure middle eastern beer company than an alien.
Oh Balzan, my Balzan!!
Writer: “How do we steal the name of Tarzan and make it even manlier? What do guys like?”
Publisher: “Bars? Cars? Wars?”
Writer: “hmmm, Barzan? Carzan? Warzan? All good but it needs more (grabs groin) macheesmo…….BALLS!!! BALZAN!! Thats it!!”
Publisher: “I can almost hear the money piling in, genius!! (also grabs groin laughing maniacally)
December 12th, 2013 at 4:48 pm
i do not think the wings belong to the dinosaur. i think a flying space leech has attached itself and begun its feast. the dinosaur seems duly alarmed by this
December 12th, 2013 at 5:25 pm
Given the lightning bolt Z in his name, I’m assuming he is holding a lightning rod used to harness the static electricity generated by the fur of the out of frame horde of cat people.
December 12th, 2013 at 5:50 pm
BALZAN Of The Gerbil People
BALZAN Of The Platypus People
BALZAN Of The People People
December 12th, 2013 at 6:36 pm
BALZOFF OF THE ORCHIDECTOMY PEOPLE.
December 12th, 2013 at 7:53 pm
BAL-ZAR Of The Bolshoi Ballet People
BAL-LOON Of The Montgolfier People
BALZAWOOD Of The Model Plane People
December 12th, 2013 at 8:28 pm
@Dead Stuff, #4: He is indeed. Balzan has the Power of Golf Balls. One of which can be seen dropping from his left hand, so perhaps he’s a bit rubbish at being Balzan, but who cares? The Cat People have his back.
December 12th, 2013 at 8:48 pm
“The Lights of Zetar.” Hmmmmmmm . . . . I know I get hung up on this stuff, and duly flagellate myself for it, periodically, but—if Zetar is a “mountain of light” how can it have “lights”? Isn’t that like saying “the oceans of the Atlantic ocean”?
December 12th, 2013 at 10:59 pm
… and an (s) doth magically appear.
December 12th, 2013 at 11:53 pm
So book 1 has cat-people, book 3 has dancing dinosaurs, logically, book 2 would be killer robots. Sadly, no http://www.abebooks.co.uk/servlet/FrameBase?content=/en/imagegallery/imagegallery.shtml?images=http://pictures.abebooks.com/ADVUNDERGROUND/1140855811.jpg What a swizz!
December 14th, 2013 at 6:22 pm
Balzan of the Village People: clearly, the dinosaur in the background is trying to dance the YMCA dance, but his stumpy arms won’t let him form the letters properly.
December 18th, 2013 at 9:57 pm
Clearly the suffix -zan means something. Tarzan, Balzan, … The evidence suggests little clothing and muscles. I must add a character to my next book – Bruce-zan, Carl-zan, Fred-zan, makes all the difference. No?
December 28th, 2013 at 9:59 am
@Bibliomancer, is it looking up or down for him when he has traded in his knife for a riding crop?
December 30th, 2013 at 6:17 pm
“…Of the Cat People” Handed to the artist on a silver platter, and this is what he comes up with? Here’s a legitimate excuse for putting a cat-person on the cover…AND HE DOESN’T? What was he thinking?
January 8th, 2014 at 2:13 am
@Stevie T – What indeed? I mean, cat-people make any cover better even without any excuse at all. Maybe the artist is allergic and taking it out on the reading public?
And if you’re not going to use cat people, why is there a dancing dragon with bird wings on the cover instead of the cited “mountain of light.”
Total side note: I really like the Star Trek Episode “The Lights of Zetar.”
January 8th, 2014 at 3:11 pm
A lot of zeds there. For the Americans, I meant Zs.
June 2nd, 2015 at 1:50 pm
@Anti-Sceptic: You mean like the band Zed Zed Top?
June 2nd, 2015 at 3:28 pm
@Tom Noir: I did hear them called that by a DJ who is now in prison*. British readers will know who I mean and will also know why this train of thought leads me to imagine that the talking book of this would have been read by the late Tommy Vance. American readers only need to know that this was an English bloke trying to do the Don LaFontaine “in a world…” voice while introducing heavy metal acts decades younger than him.
(*Not just for that.)
July 26th, 2015 at 6:43 pm
Kung-Fu without the robes. And a fat flying lizard.
March 29th, 2016 at 12:03 pm
@Tat, 20: That version of Balzac looks like Ed Ames. It’s got to be the mouth. The others remind me of Robert Davi.
May 23rd, 2023 at 5:46 pm
Balzan cubed? So, Balzan-Balzan-Balzan, right?
Or just Balzan to the third power?
May 23rd, 2023 at 10:29 pm
@Ryan: Isn’t cubed = third power?
Although we don’t know if the 3 applies to all the word or just the last letter, so it might be Balzannn.
May 24th, 2023 at 4:05 am
@GSSx-N:
The first power: To sport a headband and flowing locks
The Second Power: To Wear a Skirt and Arouse the Curious
THE THIRD POWER: To WIELD A Mashie Niblick Against Your FOES!
BalzanNn!
May 24th, 2023 at 8:48 am
“…a living mountain of light.”
ZETAR: that’s rather hurtful. I’ve been trying to lose weight, but I have a glandular problem.
May 25th, 2023 at 12:37 am
I guess Paramount/Roddenberry were laughing too hard to send a lawyer’s note?
Maybe his name’s really BAL (lightning bolt) AN. Like a light and sound effect in the middle of his name.
Where’s the lighting on his arms and weird pecs coming from? Not from the yellow streak in the background.
@Ryan: Of course! TBF, we don’r know which club he’s wielding, but you picked the correct one for the silliness. But he shouldn’t be waving a golf club aloft when there’s lightning around!
March 10th, 2024 at 4:13 pm
@GSS-xn (prev.):
Of course he can wave a golf club aloft when there’s lightning around. Bal(lightningbolt)an subscribes to the view espoused by the pro golfer Lee Trevino, who allegedly claimed that were he to be caught on the course in a thunderstorm, his response would be to pull a one iron out of his bag because “even God can’t hit a one iron!”
March 10th, 2024 at 8:20 pm
@Dead Stuff (if you’re still there): Balzac of the Cat People – author of ‘La Comedie Feline’? A cat-people reworking of ‘Cousin Bette’ would be like those 40s Tom and Jerry cartoons where the alley cats invade the house and ridicule Tom, then dress up as Carmen Miranda for some reason.
March 10th, 2024 at 11:56 pm
Under the cosmic spotlights, on the plain of swiss cheese, Balzan meets his DESTINY! [1]
Rather than a golf club, it could be his 40 foot whip: a weapon frustratingly difficult to portray in action in a closeup. That dragonosaur really is delightfully goofy, isn’t it?
@Tat Wood:GSS!
Amusing as that is to visualize, I think people have been putting too much cat in the concept. As most of the 24 Tarzan novels do not feature the apes he grew up with, I imagine the plan was that past the the first volume, Balzan adventures would be mostly cat people-free. No sign of them here, and they don’t show up on the cover of The Caves of Neurodivergence. Perhaps there would have been a prequel novel, like “Jungle Tales of Tarzan”, with intense cat-person action, if the series had gone past three novels.
[1] Prompt obscurity.