Revivals of Golden Age comic book and pulp-fiction characters have become all the rage in the last decade among publishers, and earlier this year author Richard C. White joined the fun with his novel-told-in-three-novellas Cry Havoc: The Furies, Book 1. And now he’s back with his latest pulp-adventure project!
Rima: The Emerald Forest reintroduces one of the first jungle-adventure heroines: Rima the Bird Girl, who made her debut in the 1904 novel Green Mansions: A Romance of the Tropical Forest, by William Henry Hudson. Considered one of the earliest “jungle girls”—a counterpart to “jungle kings” like Tarzan of the Apes, and often involving a white woman living in the wilderness who is treated as a goddess by native tribes—Rima predates better-known ones like Sheena: Queen of the Jungle, Nyoka the Jungle Girl, and Rulah: Jungle Goddess (it was a popular genre in Golden Age comics) and Marvel’s Shanna the She-Devil, Rima found love and adventure in the forests of Venezuela in her first and only literary appearance.
In the decades that followed, Rima popped up here and there in popular culture: a 1930s opera adaptation of Green Mansions that was broadcast one time on radio; a (not very good) 1959 film adaptation of the novel that starred Audrey Hepburn as Rima; a short-lived comic series, Rima the Jungle Girl, from DC Comics in the 1970s. But for the most part, Rima remained a “lost” character—until her triumphant return in Rima: The Emerald Forest, that is!
Here’s the back-cover copy to pique your interest:
The forest is full of mysteries. Rima is one of them…even to herself.
In 1904, author William Henry Hudson introduced readers to Rima the Bird Girl, in the pages of his bestselling novel Green Mansions. Living in the Venezuelan forests, Rima is a young woman with no family, no friends—except for the beasts with whom she shares the wilderness. She is aware that her mother had been a surviving member of a “lost” tribe that spoke in a birdlike language—which she in turn taught to her daughter—but that is all Rima has ever known of her own background. And when her mother passed away, Rima became the last of her kind.
Or did she?
Now, years after the days of Green Mansions, Rima returns in a brand-new adventure that shines a light on her mysterious origins. Intrigued by the arrival of explorers in her emerald forest, the Bird Girl follows from a distance as the party makes its way through the veldt toward a fabled lost city, not just in search of proof that it exists—but to seize the riches that are said to be found there.
Rima, though, has no use for gold or jewels—her search is for knowledge. Does anyone live in the ancient city? Could they be the lost tribe her mother belonged to? Might she no longer be alone in the world?
And most important of all, can she prevent the explorers from destroying everything they find before she possibly learns who she truly is . . . ?
The full-color cover art and lush black-and-white interior illustrations are provided by Asinjuasflora, with book design by Aaron Rosenberg.
Rima: The Emerald Forest is available in print from such online retailers as Amazon, BarnesandNoble(dot)com, and Bookshop(dot)org; the ebook version will be coming shortly. If you’re a fan of pulp adventure, be sure to order a copy today!
