Conservation: Yes! Trapping: I think yes. Some killing: An unpalatable necessity? Adventure: Awesome! Snakes: Yikes! Putting the bad guy in with a sleeping anaconda: Harshness!
A long time ago, or not so long if we measure on the geological scale, I was an early reader. 'The Three Musketeers' was a ludicrously early read, as were 'The Magician's Nephew', 'The Speckled Band', and the 'Adventure' stories of Willard Price. At the time, Llanelli Library had a good set of Willard Price in hardback in the juvenile section, and they were awesome novels. There was exploration, peril, a laundry lists of animals to encounter in each book, and there all kinds of exotic exotic locales to encounter.
'Amazon Adventure' is a bit of a low key start to the series, where Price was clearly learning the ropes of his new construction, and the pacing is bit off what you would expect from reading the second entry, 'South Sea Adventure'. However, there is still a lot to enjoy. We get the first conservation trip, where series heroes Hal and Roger Hunt, a noted naturalist's sons, take a long boat ride down the Amazon with their dad, looking for animals to catch to supply to zoos and collections. Now, in 2019, this is not quite as accepted as it would have been back then, but it is a vital function to fulfil. We will need animals to help repopulate the natural world of some improved future, when the wild ones have long been extinct, in the most idealised version of this activity. Really, it's just a grand excuse to find out about boa constrictors, anacondas, tapirs, vampire bats, marmosets and more. There's also a head called Charlie, donated by a headhunter tribe. How cute! It does feel very upsetting when some animals die, though, and some of the trapping seems cruel despite it probably being necessary on our notional larger scale.
On this occasion, the villain is a stooge, a man called 'Croc', who is workin on behalf of the competing and less ethical animal collector 'Shark' Sands, who steals their boat and cargo at one point in the story, leaving Hal and Roger stranded on a small floating island, which is where we get the first part of the survival strand of the 'Adventure' books. This is a prelude to the main event of the next entry in the series, but his punishment is really harsh indeed. Croc is locked up with a sleeping anaconda, and probably goes completely crazy, not knowing that the vicious serpent wouldn't touch him for weeks, being full and digesting something else. Bad people can die in this series, they can go crazy, and endings can't be relied upon to compromise for the sake of being 'nice' to the antagonists.
Not the best of the run, but still very good. Great stuff.
O.
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