In his depiction of the Wieroo in "Out of Time's Abyss," the third novella of The Land That Time Forgot, Burroughs seems to attack the concept of eugenics, an idea that would later be discredited by the Nazis' hideous abuse of it during World War II, but which has made a comeback in serious social and scientific discussions since the advent of gene splicing and the possibility of scientists being able to genetically alter people. Some people broadly use the term eugenics to refer to any kind of selective breeding, such as the breeding of cattle to produce more and better milk, but strictly speaking, eugenics applies to improving humanity through genetic control, either by selective breeding or altering genes. The Wieroos are practitioners of eugenics; their whole society is a fierce competition designed for only the strong to survive. They have advantages over the Galus...