Good Old Books Week, Science Fiction Style

Arthur Conan Doyle, renowned author of the Sherlock Holmes stories, also wrote a little science fiction tale he called 'The Lost World '. He invented Dinosaurs in the Contemporary World stories! Isolated South American plateaus! Larger-than-life scientists! Doomed attempts to take prehistoric creatures back to civilization! Sound familiar? Of course it does, but it's still fun to read the original. A sample of the writing, on the first sight of a pterodactyl: "For an instant the monster wings blotted out the stars, and then it vanished over the brow of the cliff above us. We all sat around in amazed silence around the fire, like the heroes of Virgil when the Harpies come upon them." If only I knew how the heroes of Virgil looked when they sat around the fire.

The Lost World