Few writers in the adventure genre are as good as Talbot Mundy at setting the stage for the action to come. This is especially true in his first novel, Rung Ho!. It's an exceptional work in many ways. For not only does it place itself firmly within the tradition of adventure writing in the first half of the last century, but it also achieves some subtle character development, especially with Mohammed Gunga and Alwa. True, this all collapses towards the book's end, especially after leaving Alwa's desert eyrie, into cliched figures manning the battlements of pure action. But what action it is!

Yet, as indicated, it's the atmosphere of India, set against the Indian Mutiny of 1857, that is so enjoyable in Rung Ho!. Mundy has a talent for establishing a sense of place and, in this case, a sense of time. He travels through two veils, so to speak. This is the Raj of the pre automobile and pre airplane era. Even the railway has yet to make an impact on the subcontinent. It is a world of stone palaces, timber and earthen huts, carved out caverns, all reached only on horseback or in carts and carriages. This landscape withers under a blistering sun along the day and chills its inhabitants during clear nights punctuated with starlight.

And Mundy achieves this effect without projecting his values of pre World War I America and Europe into the middle of the nineteenth century. What he does do, however, is emphasize those values that were common to both eras. Hence, Mundy writes a story that turns on the concepts of honor and the worthiness of one person's word given to another. It culminates in satisfying action and serves as a parable for following a moral course of action. ( )