History of Jur

The Jur novels came about during slow night shifts in France. Around 1965 I was a squad leader for a bunch of Army MPs in Southern France. At night, while working the desk and my patrols were keeping law and order, to pass the time I created plots and characters attempting to write fiction. Nothing became of my interest in writing until 1970, after a tour in the jungle of Vietnam, and those plots came back to me. I wrote the first two novels during that year, and sent the first to publishers. Basically, my main characters were an Army Green Beret and a French archaeologist, who accidentally fall through a time tunnel to the Jurassic Period. When the first novel didn’t go anywhere I set the manuscripts aside. James Reasoner suggested I change the Green Beret and set the beginning after the Stock Market Crash of ’29. The rest is history. The sequence of the novels are: “Jur: A Story of Pre Dawn Earth”, “Savage Land of Jur”, “Lost Land of Jur”, “Queen of Jur”, “Treasure of Jur”, and “Drums of Jur”. "Pangaea: Eden's Planet" actually takes place in the Permian Period, prior to the Jurassic, but it is the story that truly begins the JUR series.

Monday, December 23, 2013

Pangaea: Eden's Children


Sudden death in a prehistoric jungle. Armed only with bow and arrows, Desree, the beautiful jungle girl defends her savage land from strange invaders armed with modern weapons, searching for hidden storage vaults filled with treasure worth a dozen King Solomon's Mines. But the jungles of Pangaea are not so easily conquered! When the Jur novels were tied up due to Aspen Mountain Press, Tom refused to let them have “Treasure of Jur”, and turned the plot into a sequel of “Pangaea: Eden’s Planet”, bringing us “Eden’s Children” instead. This book is no longer available. Ton Johnson's fascinating sequel to last year's "Pangaea: Eden's Planet" is filled with pulp action and adventure in the tradition of Edgar Rice Burroughs' many prehistoric tales.