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Title: The Lost World by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle ISBN: 0-8125-6483-9 Publisher: Tor Classics Pub. Date: 15 June, 1997 Format: Mass Market Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $4.99 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.36 (47 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: ¿There are heroisms all around us¿
Comment: This book infests your soul with the want of adventure that every man and woman has deep inside them. Taking the reader through the ordinary streets of London to the exotic jungles of the Amazon, Doyle clearly and vividly describes colorful and long forgotten life forms and life-styles. From the majestic dinosaurs to the fierce ape-men to giant dragon-flies, this book will captivate every mind that reads it with a passion.
Rating: 4
Summary: A Memorable Early "Pulp" Adventure
Comment: Whatever else it may be, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's THE LOST WORLD has certainly been influential. The 1925 silent film version was one of the great special effects landmarks of its day, and the novel has been filmed on at least two other occasions, once in 1960 and once more (for television) in 2002. And one scarcely need mention such LOST WORLD-influenced efforts as THE LAND UNKNOWN or the book-to-film JURASSIC PARK and its various sequels. There seems no end in sight.
Doyle's original is remarkably straightforward and devoid of the subplots and love-interest introduced in the various film versions. The story is told from the point of view of a London reporter, Edward Malone, whose beloved spurs him into action when she declares that she could never marry a man who has no taste for high adventure or bold risk. Malone accordingly begins to cover a scientific scandal: Professor Challenger has returned from South America with outrageous claims of prehistoric life that survives on a plateau in the Amazon. When Challenger suggests a party be formed to verify his claims, Malone jumps at the chance.
It is interesting to read Doyle's LOST WORLD in comparison with Wells' WAR OF THE WORLDS, for the two novels counterpoint each other terms of mindset; where Wells' famous novel is a covert satire of the brutality of English imperialism, Doyle accepts English imperialism with a manly embrace and sends his explorers off into the uncivilized wilds, where they repeatedly encounter undesirables in great need of a blast from an English-made rifle. Indeed, they often seem more interested in eradicating newly discovered life forms than in observing them!
But we would do a disservice to both Doyle and his novel by taking it too seriously. It was written to be a blood and thunder adventure, pitting "modern" men against nature's bloody claw--and while Doyle's style here will likely seem a bit stilted to modern readers, the book still works extremely well. According to lore, Doyle preferred Dr. Challenger to his more celebrated Sherlock Holmes, and indeed Doyle wrote several novels that featured the gruff, blustery, and violent-tempered scientist. While it seems unlikely that Challenger will ever depose Holmes in the public favor, fans of the Holmes stories will likely enjoy THE LOST WORLD as an example of Doyle's non-mystery work--and certainly fans of early pulp adventure will have a field day. Recommended for the pure fun of it!
GFT, Amazon reviewer
Rating: 3
Summary: Something nasty in the jungle
Comment: I thought that "The Lost World" was an entertaining novel, taking the reader back to the glory days of the Empire, when heroes sporting bushy moustaches and eccentric professors with beards dressed in Harris tweeds and armed with little more than a trusty service revolver and hunting rifle, could venture into the most inhospitable wildernessesa and survive.
Professors Challenger and Summerlee, along with Lord John Roxton and the Irish journalist Edward Malone, go on an expedition to the deepest Amazon in an attempt to prove Challenger's claim the prehistoric life had survived there. The rest of the story has been copied and adapted so many times, tha it's not worth going over.
Nonetheless, "The Lost World" is still a good read: Conan Doyle could spin a decent yarn. True, it's very much of its age: the modern reader might feel assaulted by the Social Darwinianism and racial stereotypes which run through it: the only black character is the faithful yet simple "Zambo" (ouch); and the Latin American characters are all treacherous (of course). Even Malone, being Irish, is not exempt from this kind of stuff.
I was struck also by the violence permeating the novel. Challenger brawls with or threatens everyone who disagrees with him, the explorers decimate every living thing around them (hunting trophies being sought assidously), fights break out at scientific meetings, and the expedition members participate eagerly in a battle which is justified by the "survival of the fittest" mantra. No doubt we live in violent times at the moment, but if this is any representation of times past (albeit it is only a work of fiction) our ancesters seemed to be squabbling and brawling their way towards World War One!
G Rodgers
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Title: Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne ISBN: 0140022651 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: October, 1965 List Price(USD): $4.95 |
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Title: The Time Machine by H. G. Wells ISBN: 0812505042 Publisher: Tor Classics Pub. Date: 15 December, 1992 List Price(USD): $3.99 |
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Title: 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea by Jules Verne ISBN: 0812550927 Publisher: Tor Classics Pub. Date: 15 October, 1995 List Price(USD): $3.99 |
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Title: The Mysterious Island by Jules Verne, Isaac Asimov ISBN: 0451524918 Publisher: Signet Pub. Date: December, 1986 List Price(USD): $6.95 |
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Title: H.G. Wells' Classic the Invisible Man by Inc Alien Voices, Leonard Nimoy, John De Lancie, H. G. Wells, John de Lancie ISBN: 0671581058 Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio Pub. Date: 01 May, 1998 List Price(USD): $20.00 |
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