Sherlock Holmes Observes Pterodactyls???

Ah, the world is a wonderful place when you can enter a vast, isolated, inviolate plateau rising high from the Amazonian jungle wilds and then examine its unknown flora and fauna, discovering "extinct" dinosaurs from the Jurassic. Of course, some of those creatures are nightmarish predators, giant, strong, and fast, and there are other unpleasant surprises (ranging from huge ticks to brutal ape-men).

It all seems far removed from the world of Sherlock Holmes, and yet Sir Arthur Conan Doyle???s Professor Challenger (in his prodigious intelligence, great physical strength, cold scientific vision, and formidable pride) is nearly a wonderfully savory and funny caricature of the famous detective.

The Lost World is a humorous, exciting, vivid, and well-written early example of the "lost world" sub-genre of science fiction, featuring intrepid (white) explorers whose adventures in inaccessible exotic locales become catalysts for violent and dramatic change.

And the reader Glen McCready is excellent! His savory reading caught me from the opening scene, in which the lovesick newspaper reporter Malone woos his spoiled beloved Gladys but is rejected because she wants him to be a hero. And McCready's pedantic and pompous booming Professor Challenger voice is a delight for the ears. His good-natured narrator Malone, dry Professor Summerly, and steely Gentleman-Sportsman-Adventurer Sir John Roxton are fine, too. And he reads every word and phrase and sentence and pause with just the right amount of wit, meaning, pleasure, pitch, and pacing.

60 people found this helpful

Wit and Drama

I love this book, it's hugely entertaining with superbly drawn characters and a rip roaring plot. The reader of this edition, Glen McCready, voices the tale into colourful, energetic, life and really brings out the humour in the writing. I expect I'll listen to this one a few times.

54 people found this helpful

Excellent

One of the great old adventure stories that still holds up today. Glen McCready's narration is perfect. Highly recommended!

25 people found this helpful

Great performance of an excellent story!

McCready's performance alone would make this enjoyable even if the book wasn't so well written. The last five hours are especially exciting, fast paced, and filled with adventure. Doyle includes a lot of humor in the book which McCready expertly delivers. I immediately started looking for other books narrated by McCready.

19 people found this helpful

How you like me now, Gladys?

*I have a presentiment that you are going to propose, Ned. I do wish you wouldn't; for things are so much nicer as they are.*[Gladys]

Poor (Edward Malone) Neddy, a lowly reporter for the Daily Gazette finds out the night he plans to propose to the love of his life that he doesn't cut the mustard. Her dreams: *what I should like to be,--envied for my man....If I marry, I do want to marry a famous man! He must be a man who could do, who could act, who could look Death in the face and have no fear of him, a man of great deeds and strange experiences. It is never a man that I should love, but always the glories he had won; for they would be reflected upon me.*

Thus begins Ned's search in earnest for an adventure that will make him worthy of Gladys's love. He meets Professor George Edward Challenger, who claims to have been part of an earlier expedition that found a world that has been lost to civilization, a world where dinosaurs still exist. After a heated town meeting with other scientists and explorers where Challenger is laughed at and called a charlatan, he decides to return to the secret plateau in South America and bring back proof, and invites the young reporter along.

As you might have noticed from the passages I quoted above, Doyle's story feels a little dated (published 1912), but the language used reflects a time when blustering *adventurers* crowded into smoke-filled rooms to discuss various manly things, a few years after the Victorian era (and H.G. Wells' The Time Machine). Doyle's words take you back to another time and that was the charm of the book for me (since Spielberg already took our imaginings of a dinosaur and brought it to movie screens). Narrator Glen McCready does a beautiful job capturing the dialogue from a time when conversation was an art that required finesse and refinement.

I doubt there are any spoilers still undisclosed since 1912. You can't help but snicker a little when the young reporter returns a famous explorer, welcomed back with a grand procession -- a hero. Alas, Gladys who yearned for her famous man has settled down with a simple clerk. She tells Ned, *I am so sorry about it. But it couldn't have been so very deep, could it, if you could go off to the other end of the world and leave me here alone.* Doyle wraps up with a wink to readers; Ned/Edward escapes Gladys and gladly chooses to return again to the secret plateau in the Amazon.

NOTE: A big disappointment was the PDF! While it has a good piece on Doyle [*Notes by Roy McMillan*], it doesn't contain the original illustrations included in the book when *it was originally published serially in the popular Strand Magazine and illustrated by New-Zealand-born artist Harry Rountree during the months of April–November 1912.* The pictures add another dimension to Doyle's story and are worth searching out.

18 people found this helpful

Classic Excellence!

Any additional comments?

Stop reading this right now & go download it. 5 stars straight across! There is a reason This book is considered a classic and I for one am thrilled it wasn't ruined by horrible direction or narration. I highly recommend this book.

17 people found this helpful

The Original Jurassic Park? Yes and No.

It's amazing how you can be aware of a book all your life, think you know what it is, and then be completely stunned because it's not what you expected at all. If you've seen TV or film versions, you've not experienced the real story. Having said that, the story is a much quicker adventure than I expected, and it almost demands a sequel just to explore what isn't touched upon. Prof. Challenger, especially, is one of those memorable characters of literature who just stays with you because you love to hate him - even though he's not a villain - because it's hard not to share his enthusiasm for the adventure. Every film version I've ever seen paints him the straight-laced gentleman, and it just couldn't be further from Conan Doyle's original. As a surprise, it's quite a bit different from the writing style of Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories. All in all, it's very much a straightforward, old world adventure, and well worth the short time it takes to go through it.

16 people found this helpful

Fantastic!

What a creation! The superb narration, assigning wildly entertaining voices to such unique characters, brought to life a tale so fantastic that I half believed the account was genuine!

12 people found this helpful

Should have stayed lost.

Another Arthur Conan Doyle book?Great, right? Not so much. This book is full of half witted Indians, kindly Negros, and courageous White men shooting up the Ape men. An interesting historical example, but not very good reading. I finished it, but barely.

9 people found this helpful

Thin characterization = I don't care

This book wasn’t for you, but who do you think might enjoy it more?

It's possible that it might have come across somewhat better on paper. Perhaps people familiar with the full body of Conan Doyle's work would know how to get something out of his less successful works that I didn't.

What could Arthur Conan Doyle have done to make this a more enjoyable book for you?

His characters were adult men who whine and bicker with each other like a couple of children in the backseat of a car. If I liked any of the characters I would have cared more about their adventures. But these were not people I wanted to spend time with.

How could the performance have been better?

McCready's character voices are dry, English and generally unemotional, which makes them hard to particularly like. So when the high points of the performance come from listening to him argue with himself, it's a recipe for the whole thing to be downright unlikable.

You didn’t love this book... but did it have any redeeming qualities?

There were two scenes at the British Archaeological Society meeting - one at the beginning, one at the end - that had me laughing out loud.

Any additional comments?

You can't win 'em all.

9 people found this helpful