At the Earth's Core: At the Earth's Core

[Adam]

Woo, book 22!

[Adam]

Anyone have a copy of this? The Boulder library doesn't have one!

[Williwaw]

Adam wrote: "Anyone have a copy of this? The Boulder library doesn't have one!"

I have one with that cool Frazetta cover, and you can't have it! Nyah nyah!!!

I'd say it's time you hit the used and rare bookshops; or if you are still a "student," sign up for Amazon Prime (free!) and get expedited shipping, which I think is also free. (Hmmm . . . sounds too good to be true, maybe I'm exaggerating, but try it anyway!)

[Gina]

Bookworm didn't have it (but I bought a very sexy lookin' Tarzan book :)). Maybe Red Letter will?

[Williwaw]

Amazon

ABE

[Williwaw]

free online version

[Adam]

I might try and read it electronically...hope that doesn't change my enjoyment of the book any: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/123

[Williwaw]

If you feel like going for a drive here's a library copy in Broomfield:

here

[Mark]

google books has it for free...

[Adam]

Reading an e-copy:
" the great wheel would yield on the instant to the power of my young and vigorous muscles. Nor was my belief mere vanity, for always had my physique been the envy and despair of my fellows"

Sooooo bad that it's good? This is like romance novel level.

[Williwaw]

Yeah, this was probably the first romance novel that I ever read. I'm almost embarrassed to admit that I actually got sucked into it and enjoyed it when I was a high-school kid.

It will be interesting to see if I can still stomach it in my jaded, 50-year-old incarnation. I haven't started it yet, but I'll keep you posted.

[Mark]

I love this book perforce. I read it probably 6 times though and each time it loses something. For me, it's now become just an echo of the past when I gobbled up verdant steamy jungles, lissome bare slave girls and evil reptiles. It's the archtype for frank frazetta, and WoW and Boneshaker (if not all of steampunk). I can barely read it now though, the magic's just faded. Is it my refined literary taste? Maybe! (Heh. I'm refined.) Plowing ahead anyway: it's a fast read, perfect for a sunny beach. I hope you guys will like it. Meanwhile I'm gonna force it on a 15 yr old, as an experiment.

[Williwaw]

It was not until about ten years after Pellucidar was published, in 1915, that the first science fiction magazine (or, "scientifiction" magazine, as Hugo Gernsback called it) appeared.

But ERB's genre already had a name: "scientific romance." It seems fitting, doesn't it?

[Williwaw]

Here's a cool link to J. Allen St. John's illustrations from the first book edition of "At the Earth's Core."

St. John

It's amazing how much bibliographic information about ERB is available on the Web.

[Williwaw]

We've gotta have Mark and Gina review this diagram for design flaws (especially as they relate to steering!).

Prospector

[Mark]

Love the prospector. Don't the fuel tanks look good? Insectoid, and yet shaped right, to fly through the dirt. That kind of nozzle presumes hypersonic expansion of the "fluid" (dirt). One can only assume huge exit velocities. An engineering analysis could be performed, to find fuel consumption, calculate the infernal engine's efficiency: the mind boggles... One assumes air is to be found in the interstices between bowlders, to burn all that fuel? And yet they suffocated! Something amiss there perhaps. As a control systems engineer I'm wanting rifling too, or some means of roll control, both to resist and provide purchase for the mighty drill, and to allow yaw steering to effect, by banking, motion in any direction. Otherwise I find the design utterly flawless. Comparisons to the boneshaker are unavoidable, and I note that hundreds (?) of intervening years have reduced the range, speed and payload without fixing the steering difficulties. (perhaps Swackhammer could turn it?) This calibrates our less sanguine modern imaginations, at least: even in fantasy, we can't imagine boring through the earth, but only under Seattle.

[Williwaw]

It seems to me that the thrusters needed to pivot. The diagram doesn't seem to imply any other type of steering mechanism.

From my admittedly amateur perspective, I'd guess that the Prospector's thrusters could not pivot adequately. Because the vessel was excreting dense, non-fluid media (namely, earth and bowlders) around and in close proximity to the thrusters, the thrusters got pinched under extreme pressure. David Innes's muscles were no competition against the high pressure and backward momentum of these chunky masses.

(Of course, this failure was essential to the story, so maybe we should applaud?)

What say you rocket scientists to my uneducated speculation? And please, no pish-toshing this time!

[Mark]

My heavens!
N.B. the callout, "Outer and inner shells jointed to allow change in direction" as well as the two carapace segments to which it refers. The pin-jointed articulation is plainly visible, to any but the most casual observer. There must be a smudge on your copy of the drawing, else you would of course have instantly noted this elementary detail.

[Williwaw]

I have to admit, I missed this detail! (Oops! Send me back to first grade for a reading lesson, please!)

But imagine trying to wrench that nose through solid earth. Seems like an even worse situation!

[Williwaw]

Looking again: not sure there's any rocket science involved. It's merely a screw or a giant drill.

My question is whether it can really turn at all, without severe damage to the fuselage.

[Williwaw]

Pellucidar comic strip:

check this out!

[Adam]

Okay, finished!

I have to say, after reading the first few pages I really felt that this was going to be just silly nonsense. But, it really drew me in, and I flew through the rest of it. Really fun!

[Williwaw]

my review

So, are we going to read this whole series? This ended in a rather cliff-hanging way. I'm not sure that I want to leave Pellucidar behind just yet!

[Adam]

Downloaded and started to read #2 on the plane back from Hawaii...not sure I can handle too much more though :)

[Williwaw]

Adam wrote: "Downloaded and started to read #2 on the plane back from Hawaii...not sure I can handle too much more though :)"

Too much Pellucidar? Or too much electrical-schmectical style reading?

[Mark]

I think we ought to move on. It's good stuff, but there's lots to read out there.

Next?!

[Williwaw]

How 'bout this chere "Adventures in the Orgasmatron," or other screed mentioned in the link below:

Orgasmatron

[Mark]

Just read Rainbow Mars, which is an homage to Burroughs and Wells, written in Heinlein style and Niven's planet-spanning logistics. It's a lighthearted beach read in this genre's footsteps.