The Island Under the Earth

by Avram Davidson

The Island Under the Earth The Island Under the Earth

Genres: Fantasy, Fiction, Science Fiction

192 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1967

About the author

Avram Davidson was an American Jewish writer of fantasy fiction, science fiction, and crime fiction, as well as the author of many stories that do not fit into a genre niche. He won a Hugo Award and three World Fantasy Awards in the science fiction and fantasy genre, a World Fantasy Life Achievement award, and a Queen's Award and an Edgar Award in the mystery genre. Davidson edited The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction from 1962 to 1964. His last novel The Boss in the Wall: A Treatise on the House Devil was completed by Grania Davis and was a Nebula Award finalist in 1998. The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction says "he is perhaps sf's most explicitly literary author".

Reviews

[Derek · Rating 3 out of 5]

The biographic page in the Ace edition claims two planned sequels, The Sixlimbed Folk and The Cap of Grace, and this is very believable. Much here is anticipatory, and leaves the reader with a feeling of scope and a larger scheme at play. As such, it's incomplete: the ending is abruptly cataclysmic and there are all kinds of threads--"The Cap of Grace" in particular, but also deeper questions about 'starflux' and 'earthflux' and even the nature of this flat-Earth(?) setting itself--that obviously plug into what should come next.

But if you can get past this, the construction itself is a marvel. In addition to the pure vision of fantasy that feels inspired by classic sources, it has a dreamlike, edgy quality where the world itself is mutable, subject to "earthflux" and "gathering in" that affects causality and time as well as space. Narration blends with dialog and flashback morphs into present day musing. You never really know where anything is going or what will happen next.

I can certainly see certain readers putting it right down, and others finding the experience unrewarding.

[William Gerke · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another of the books from a Boskone panel on "forgotten science fiction masterpieces," "The Island Under the Earth" generated a mixed response from me. It is the tale of Captain Stag and his stolen bride, a house with a history, a woman who lost her children, centaurs with blood that burns like acid and personalities like men and horses, dueling merchants, and the brief appearance of the world's greatest thief. Filled with macabre, grotesque and colorful characters and bizarre situations (including one of the best reactions to time travel that I've seen up until "Looper"), the book treads territories of weirdness that would never sell now. Some of the images still linger--the augers, the centaur bullroar, the fore-mentioned thief. However, the ending is crashingly abrupt, the literary equivalent of dropping a rock on all the characters. I read (unsubstantiated) that it was meant to be the first of a trilogy, but the rest did not get written. Had there been sequels, I would have read them to see what Davidson intended with all this. Without them, we're left with a beautiful but flawed little gem.

[Nomadman · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very odd little book, made me feel like I was experiencing a waking dream at times. Originally written as the first of a trilogy, but for whatever reason was left as a one off (apparently Davidson simply lost interest). As such it's something of a curio, like a fragment of something far grander and more magical. Read for the wonderful ideas and Davidson's gnarly, off beat prose but don't expect much of a plot.

[Jack Deighton · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’m not sure I can give a full flavour of this novel as the conditions I read it under were not the best; I was away from home when I started it and my reading of it was interrupted by several days.

Davidson’s world here – it is not apparent whether it really is supposed to be under the Earth as the title implies – is technologically lacking and inhabited by humans (Fourlimbs) and Centaurs known as sixies, between whom there is a large degree of hostility. The setting seems to be agrarian or at least mediæval and the text’s attitudes are of its time, especially in regard to the off-hand (blatantly sexist really) treatment of females – of either species. It involves a quest of sorts and augurs called Gortecas and Castegor who are a sort of serious Tweedledum and Tweedledee and later merge into one entity called Troscegac.

Oddities abound. At one point an old sixie, seemingly dying, asks some humans, in garbled speech, for wine. The next day the sixie has gone, apparently revivified by the wine. Later it is seen frisking about and chasing a young golden-haired female centaur.

The text is couched idiosyncratically. Phrases such as “blue-green-white its phosphor light,” “heed the old ones not,” and “raised his both hands,” give some of the flavour. Some spellings are also non-standard. Yet other things bring us to ground once more. Again Davidson uses words that imply a Scottish ancestry. The implement used for sweeping here is named a besom.

I would say that The Island Under the Earth is not as successful a novel as previous ones of Davidson’s I have read. Rork! for instance.

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another in my current spate of "catching up" with the too-many books unread in my library. After Work! I was predisposed to like this one, but...

Okay, the writing is wonderful, clever and precise and filled with all the subtlety of the previous book, but I reached the end and had to admit "I have no idea what this is supposed to be about." Given the last line, I'm tempted to say it is a long joke with a clever punchline, but that doesn't help because I don't know what the joke might be. Along the way, I was entertained and sometimes delighted, but the totality is....

I am occasionally not as bright as I'd like to think I am, so for now I'll assume it's just me. This is not my sort of thing usually. But all the suggestive references to myth engaged my imagination even while my apprehension of the story lagged behind.

[Pete · Rating 2 out of 5]

I've had this book for nearly 40 years but held off reading it in the hope that Davidson would write the promised sequels. Well, if the sequels existed, I don't think that I would bother. Davidson is an inventive author, and his prose is quirky and entertaining. In pieces, this book is rather striking, but it does not work as a novel. I was confused nearly the entire time. I often did not understand what the characters were up to or how the various characters were related to each other. At the end of the book, Davidson reveals his plan--the scenes are not always in chronological order, and the narrative is meant to be fragmented much as the ornament on the circular margins of a platter. Would have helped to know this in advance.