I recently finished reading At the Earth’s Core (1914) by Edgar Rice Burroughs. This is the first of the Pellucidar novels, a series that went on to include seven books in which the protagonist David Innes and others explore a Hollow Earth setting.

Reading this was a classic ERB experience. Action, adventure, creatively imagined creatures, societies, and characters, as well as a protagonist committed to chivalrous conduct, honor, and courage in the face of adversity make for a rousing tale.

“And there I was, unarmed, and, with the exception of a loin cloth, as naked as I had come into the world. I could imagine how my first ancestor felt that distant, prehistoric morn that he encountered for the first time the terrifying progenitor of the thing that had me cornered now beside the restless, mysterious sea.”