Customer Reviews

Uncharted Seas

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I sought this book out because I was a fan of the old Hammer film, "Lost Continent." I was surprised the book was so hard to track down since Dennis Wheatley's other books are more readily available and have been the basis for other films. I finally found the book overseas.

My first impression was that it was incredibly dry. What character development there is seems to be just another function of the plot, getting from A to B. Mr. Wheatley tends to tell rather than show, a device that may have been more appropriate at the time but makes for fairly dull reading nowadays, especially since this is supposed to be an adventure novel.

The differences between the book and the film that was made from it are numerous, the only similarities are some of the characters and the fact that a ship full of dubious characters runs into trouble in an uncharted area of the southern hemisphere, grapples with enemies and meets up with friends on a "lost" island and, for extra added fun, some monsters are thrown in.

Where things really diverge, and what makes the lack of availability of this book in the States more clear, is the incredible racism and sexism Mr. Wheatley displays in his book. Rather than the malevolent Spanish Inquisitors of the film, which gave it such a spooky edge, he has African "savages." There's a sort of Edgar Rice Burroughs appeal, I suppose, but the blatant use of words that are no longer acceptable to describe people of African descent (won't name them here but he uses several of the more common ones) as well as an apalling Chinese cook stereotype, left me pretty cold. It was almost humorous in a way, it's so offensive and outrageous to the eyes of a modern reader. Anyone with differently-colored skin is an ignorant non--human whose ethnic instincts are viewed as heathenism. All the women are for are to love their men, to provide them with unlimited sex.

Again, there was probably a time when this sort of thing made sense or was less offensive, especially to those around the age of 13. It just doesn't work anymore, and this coupled with the dryness of the writing style makes this one hard to get through and difficult to reccomend. Hopefully anyone doing a similar search for the roots of the fun late 60's movie will read this and be content to enjoy the movie for what it is. I gave the book more than one star because the idea is still pretty original and some of the (very brief) moments with monsters were genuinely exciting.