Luana

by Alan Dean Foster

On April 15, 1960 a plane crashed in the untamed African jungle. The survivor—a young girl!
Luana grew up in the mysterious African jungle--watched over and cared for by a panther, a lion and a chimp. She could hold her own tripping through the tree branches or even stalking animals. For fifteen years Luana led an idyllic life in her jungle habitat. Then suddenly she is drawn into the world of men--a world she does not understand. Heading into darkest Africa, a safari is set upon by the treacherous and deadly Wanderi tribesmen. When Luana rescues the party, she finds herself hopelessly enmeshed in the adventurers' fortunes. She finds herself strangely drawn to Isabel Hardi, who is looking for her father--and dangerously attracted to George Barrett, who is searching for a city of gold.

Genres: Fantasy, Fiction, Adventure

182 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 1974

About the author

Bestselling science fiction writer Alan Dean Foster was born in New York City in 1946, but raised mainly in California. He received a B.A. in political science from UCLA in 1968, and a M.F.A. in 1969. Foster lives in Arizona with his wife, but he enjoys traveling because it gives him opportunities to meet new people and explore new places and cultures. This interest is carried over to his writing, but with a twist: the new places encountered in his books are likely to be on another planet, and the people may belong to an alien race.

Foster began his career as an author when a letter he sent to Arkham Collection was purchased by the editor and published in the magazine in 1968. His first novel, The Tar-Aiym Krang, introduced the Humanx Commonwealth, a galactic alliance between humans and an insectlike race called Thranx. Several other novels, including the Icerigger trilogy, are also set in the world of the Commonwealth. The Tar-Aiym Krang also marked the first appearance of Flinx, a young man with paranormal abilities, who reappears in other books, including Orphan Star, For Love of Mother-Not, and Flinx in Flux.

Foster has also written The Damned series and the Spellsinger series, which includes The Hour of the Gate, The Moment of the Magician, The Paths of the Perambulator, and Son of Spellsinger, among others. Other books include novelizations of science fiction movies and television shows such as Star Trek, The Black Hole, Starman, Star Wars, and the Alien movies. Splinter of the Mind's Eye, a bestselling novel based on the Star Wars movies, received the Galaxy Award in 1979. The book Cyber Way won the Southwest Book Award for Fiction in 1990. His novella Our Lady of the Machine won him the UPC Award (Spain) in 1993. He also won the Ignotus Award (Spain) in 1994 and the Stannik Award (Russia) in 2000.

Reviews

[Craig · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the first of Foster's many film novelizations to appear. It has a very odd back story: Ballantine hired him to write the novelization of the 1968 Italian film (which was subtitled The Girl Tarzan), the rights to which had been secured for American/English distribution. There was no English translation of the script and no copy of the film available with subtitles. So Foster watched the movie in Italian (which he did not speak) and then wrote his own original novel, based heavily on the cool Frank Frazetta movie poster. It's a nice Sheena-of-the-Jungle kind of story, very enjoyable. I've never had the opportunity to see the movie, but I've read that the novelization bears little resemblance to it. I'll go out on a limb and bet the book is better!

[Charles · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'll say 3 and a 1/2 stars. Pretty good. Entertaining. The ending was pretty fast paced and enjoyable, although utterly predictable. I guess since this is a novelization of a movie that stands to reason. I've never seen the movie myself.

[Squire · Rating 3 out of 5]

Alan Dan Foster's first crack at movie novelization--without a working script, with a movie already made, dubbed in Italian.

I watched the movie Luana, La Figlia Delle Foresta Vergine (Daughter of the Virgin Forest) beforehand and found it to be quite boring and uninteresting. The novel couldn't be anything but better. And it is, by a loooong shot.

Aside from some detailing of the relationships between Luana, the chimp Ohoh, the panther Chaugh, and the lion Jukakhan (none of which are named in the movie), ADF follows the action of the movie--guessing at what everybody is saying and what their motivations are. Some of his guesses are spot on while some of them are wildly wrong--but always more entertaining.

About halfway through the novel, Foster takes charge of the action and delivers a finale that is much better than what is in the movie: more exciting and much more violent (with embarrassing moments of 1970's machismo thrown in).

Well-written and plotted, it provided a strong springboard for starting Foster's 50-year career as a movie Tie-In novelist as detailed in his wonderful memoir The Director Should've Shot You.

Now, if only his novelization of the two-part Maude abortion arc had been published. I'd like to read than one.

[Sebastian · Rating 2 out of 5]

Of course, never judge a book by its cover, but in this case, I just couldn’t resist the gorgeous Frazetta illustration, so here we are. The meta-story is fascinating in itself (nutshell version: Foster was hired to do the novelization for the US release of the movie, but the dub or subtitles were not ready yet, so he watched the movie in the original Italian – which he didn’t speak – and tried to guess what was going on), but the actual story – not so much. Part of the problem is that we are promised a tale of Luana and her adventures in the jungles of Africa, but what we actually get is another Noble Great White Hunter wish-fulfillment fairytale with Luana as an occasional supporting character. Another part of the problem is Alan Dean Foster – I have a vague feeling that in the hands of a more capable author, able to write even slightly believable dialogue and at least two-dimensional characters, this would have been a delightful adventure yarn, but unfortunately, he was unable to do either, relegating this potentially feminist version of Tarzan to forgettable, cheap, throwaway bus-station pulp. That cover, though...