Sir Arthur Conan Doyle – The Lost World & Other Stories
Undoubtedly, A. C. Doyle is primarily known for his masterpieces with the world-famous detective Sherlock Holmes. But beside his detective stories, Doyle also produced some works dealing with the super-natural and mystic, what today would be called science fiction. In fact, Doyle, alongside Jules Verne or H.G. Wells, is counted among the earliest writers of this genre.
The Lost World & Other Stories is a collection of five narrations (The Lost World, The Poison Belt, The Land of Mist, The Disintegration Machine, When the World Screamed) with Doyle’s main science fiction protagonist Professor George Edward Challenger, generally accepted to be the most brilliant mind in Europe. Together with his friends, the journalist Edward Dunn Malone, the adventurer Lord John Roxton, and Professor Summerlee, Challenger passes a series of adventures, the one more fascinating and perilous than the other.
In The Lost World the group explores a region in South America which has been cut off from the rest of the world for millions of years. So much so, that this region followed a different evolutionary path and still preserves some specimens of dinosaurs. A sort of early twentieth century “Jurassic Park”, if you will.
More striking is the idea in The Poison Belt where planet Earth floats through a poisonous fog in the universe. It is odourless, tasteless, and invisible, but its effects are devastating. Every living creature on Earth – man, bird or beast – perishes through the poison. Except for plant life, the earth becomes a dead planet within merely 24 hours!
The Land of Mist explores the world of the dead. A captivating and at times truly gruesome account of ghosts, spiritualists, and sittings where mediums get in contact with earth-bound spirits. An account which in the end even converts such a rationalist and master-mind as Professor Challenger.
The last two stories are shorter narrations, The Disintegration Machine giving an early idea of what would later become teleportation in Star Trek, and When the World Screamed demonstrating how the earth is in fact a living organism such as humans are.
The cover says: “This collection is a must for all readers who love science fiction and for those who are interested in the early development of the genre”. So why not finish with that recommendation?
Arthur Conan Doyle: The Lost World & Other Stories. Wordsworth Classics, 1995. 480 pages. First published in 1912.
The Lost World & Other Stories is a collection of five narrations (The Lost World, The Poison Belt, The Land of Mist, The Disintegration Machine, When the World Screamed) with Doyle’s main science fiction protagonist Professor George Edward Challenger, generally accepted to be the most brilliant mind in Europe. Together with his friends, the journalist Edward Dunn Malone, the adventurer Lord John Roxton, and Professor Summerlee, Challenger passes a series of adventures, the one more fascinating and perilous than the other.
In The Lost World the group explores a region in South America which has been cut off from the rest of the world for millions of years. So much so, that this region followed a different evolutionary path and still preserves some specimens of dinosaurs. A sort of early twentieth century “Jurassic Park”, if you will.More striking is the idea in The Poison Belt where planet Earth floats through a poisonous fog in the universe. It is odourless, tasteless, and invisible, but its effects are devastating. Every living creature on Earth – man, bird or beast – perishes through the poison. Except for plant life, the earth becomes a dead planet within merely 24 hours!
The Land of Mist explores the world of the dead. A captivating and at times truly gruesome account of ghosts, spiritualists, and sittings where mediums get in contact with earth-bound spirits. An account which in the end even converts such a rationalist and master-mind as Professor Challenger.
The last two stories are shorter narrations, The Disintegration Machine giving an early idea of what would later become teleportation in Star Trek, and When the World Screamed demonstrating how the earth is in fact a living organism such as humans are.
The cover says: “This collection is a must for all readers who love science fiction and for those who are interested in the early development of the genre”. So why not finish with that recommendation?
Arthur Conan Doyle: The Lost World & Other Stories. Wordsworth Classics, 1995. 480 pages. First published in 1912.