Customer Reviews

At The Earth's Core And Out Of Time's Abyss

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

First off: Great books! I had read these books as a teenager, and loved them. My son is at the age where he is interested in fantasy and sci-fi. We had read ERB's A Princess of Mars, and he loved it. So I was pursuing other ERB series. Many are out of print or hard to find. I ordered this compilation, as well as Pellucidar. When I got them, I was truly dissappointed. They're printed in this new "Books on Demand" format by InstaBook. It seems to be basically a bound xerox. (paper's better, but you get the idea) The indent's in each paragraph are about an inch, with small text, which makes it really annoying to read. With no interior illustration, and a cover that seems to have nothing to do with the novel.

I certainly recommend a lot of ERB's series for high fantasy: The Pellucidar books, The John Carter of Mars books, The Venus books and others. But if you want my advice find a different edition, or find it used somewhere. It's getting to the point where the quality of the publishing is actually an issue. You would never see a book like this in a regular book store. I wish the publisher info was listed as well, because I wouldn't buy anything by InstaBook again.

I've just finished rereading this novel within the last hour. Again, I'm not disappointed.

The story involves a young adventurer named David Innes who decides to accompany an elderly professor on a test drive of an "iron mole." This drilling machine is intended to penetrate the earth in search of minerals. However, something goes wrong. The controls break, and the iron mole plummets straight down for hundreds of miles, to break through into an "inner earth."

This world is inhabited by dinosaurs, primitive tribes, and a race of evil bat-like creatures called Mayars. David must rescue a stunningly beautiful young woman, who's completely stolen his heart. But more, he must somehow end the dominance and exploitation the Mayars exert over the primitive humans in this world.

At the time this book was written, before 1920, there were serious treatises being written about the possibility that our earth was hollow, with an inner world to be discovered. Burroughs apparently just capitalized on this now out-of-date scientific notion.

The Mayars are terrifying, the girls are fantastic, and there's a nonstop series of action scenes. The friendships David makes with various prehistoric warriors are well drawn. For an episodic adventure novel, the characters are made real enough that the reader really CARES what happens to them.

This is the first of the Pellucidar novels. There were at least six, I believe. Pellucidar is what Burroughs called the inner world within the heart of the earth.

The language is clean-- the book could be recommended to young people with no concerns at all. In fact, teens -- or the young at heart -- are the prime audience for these fine adventure books.