A book about Commander Lexington White's arctic expedition and inadvertent discovery of the country of Atvatabar in inner earth, his subversion of their culture and consequent war, and the aftermath. Written by William Bradshaw.
Basics
- Genre: Science fiction, adventure, utopia, hollow earth
- Protagonist: Lexington White
- Antagonist: Atvatabar tradition that is held to the detriment of her people
- Setting: the Arctic Ocean, the interior of the earth under the Atlantic Ocean, the 1890s
- Theme: Adventure, love, inner earth's humanistic religion vs the surface world's theistic religion, the inner world reflecting the inner self
- Recommend?: Sure. Within the hollow earth genre, this is the rare one that at least has a coherent narrative. I don't think it actually influenced anything important or claimed to be a true account, though, so maybe others are more valuable if less entertaining reads. As a sci-fi adventure, though, it's very mediocre.
It's been a few years since I read this, and it was just okay. The arctic sailing was as an exciting read as others in the hollow earth genre, but the fantasy of exploring inner earth was uncharacteristically detailed and populated with developed characters. Common elements are here - everything is powered by electricity (an otherworldly tech), lots of gold, a mild inner earth climate, a utopia that turns out to be deeply flawed, some kind of subversion of religion, and weird science or math justifications for its setting. It goes a bit further and actually describes inner earth and all its whimsy - a garden of odd plant-animal hybrids, fantastic ostrich-like transportation tech, airships, etc. It's kind of cool, but not really anything I haven't seen in other settings.
The biggest focus is on their religion, which perpetually gave me the same feeling as the temple to man in Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead. Rand's religious space was flat, simple, and made to human scale, unlike the loft steeples and vaulted ceilings and giant organs in Christian churches. Atvatabar's religious structures focused more on the history of man and the fields of study he has mastered, but it's the same deeply humanistic imagery. It falls into that really common transhuman yearning to not have a body and idolize the human soul. Atvatabar glorifies pure love without sex, so they turn religious adept couples into disembodied twin-souls who are secretly miserable. The goddess Lyone also can never marry and is also secretly miserable. White falls in love with the goddess, and he doesn't accept any reason to not be with her to the point of starting a war. They also use like 15 kinds of magic in this religion, like theosophy, necromancy, clairvoyance, spiritualism, etc, and they rattle off the full list every few chapters.
This theme is a little strange, and I'm not really sure what to learn from it. Chaste nuns are the only thing vaguely similar in my world, and I only see them in cartoons, so forced celibacy is not really something that I interact with. So the theme's just kinda weird to me, and the resulting conflict lacks tension because I have zero sympathy for the side of tradition. If the couples want to have sex within the confines of marriage, that isn't dirty or sinful. Also, nothing's wrong with having a body, so much so that God will restore ours to perfection someday. And not to mention, idk, Jesus has a body. I have never connected with the idea of being purely soul and leaving my body behind.
The other running theme that theism is unnatural and man is prone to self-worship is more relevant, but I don't really appreciate the points made there either, so they didn't really stick with me. Christianity teaches that man's default behavior is serving his sinful self and falling deeper into his dark nature. Christianity would never claim man readily conforms to true worship, so claiming men are dishonest about who they truly worship is not hard-hitting commentary on my religion. I know it's hard to choose to serve God and His desires over my own! The Bible uses phrases like "take up your cross" and "be a living sacrifice." Obviously that's not pleasant, duh. Fakers like King Saul are obstinate as a stone, so I'm sure the commentary would bounce off them, too, as they think about all the other people guilty of that sin. I just don't really feel offended or called out, nor do I think Christians in general would, so the commentary falls flat. Overall, though, the human-centric Atvatabarese religion, tinged with occult practices, was pretty forgettable anyway.
Structure
The overall story is presented like a journey - the arduous trek to the pole, the welcome and grand tour of Atvatabar, and a personal tour by their goddess. Next follows a war story with the conflict that results when White rejects their traditions and tries to save the victims, ally recruiting and reconnaissance, and the battle. Then everybody lives happily ever after. It's your basic hero story, complete with a journey to another world, valor in battle, a damsel in distress, and true love bringing her back to life. Nothing new.