When the World Shook

Set at the turn of the twentieth century -- a day and age when a cruise around the world was a ticket for adventure, not a recipe for relaxation -- Haggard's When the World Shook is a bit of science fiction made before the form had a name. Humphrey Arbuthnot, Basil Bastin, and a physician, Bickley, are off on just such an adventure -- and where it leads them is a SF-style land of the weird. Somewhere in the south Pacific they take refuge in a cave on a forbidden island, and there they find skeletal ruins of machines -- flying machines. In the ruins they find two tombs with crystal lids: One contains the body of an elderly man -- and holds a beautiful young woman. Naturally enough, our heroes open the coffins, resurrect the entombed . . . and begin a great and remarkable adventure. Haggard was a heck of a writer, and the book tells a whopper of a tale: When the World Shook is not a thing to miss.