... a very retro slip cover....

I forget where I saw it now, when I was looking up some Haggard things online, but there was whole page of the covers-- what a riot. A precursor to comic book covers for sure! It reminded me of the decade-centric view I'd had of many early-TV favorites-- to encounter them years later as the earlier oldtime radio shows upon which the TV shows were based is quite mind-opening as well.

As far as stereotypes, I think the characters I have met so far in his books have been archetypes. As pointed out above with Gagool, these are types we recognize from people we know in our work. The similarities are about the characters' vividly drawn personalities so much more than whichever "race" they happened to be in the books. The potential parallels go on and on-- for example hockey players on our favorite teams are either Jeekie or an Umslopagaas, but seldom both. :~)

There's a lack of homophobia I also like, where there are close male friendships free of fear of embarrassment. In more than one passage a character-- I believe it's Quartermain-- describes the beauty of some of the other men in the story. In today's revisionist thinking it might be said that it's a thinly cloaked gay thing, but I think manliness just had different expectations and dynamics back then. Anyway, again, it offers a lot to think about.

~Susan