Where Doyle introduces us to the wonders gradually, with a moment of beauty here and there, the moment that Burroughs’ U-Boat surfaces in the valley it is immediately besieged by a swirling, seething mass of reptiles. Dinosaurs mean nothing but danger and violence to him. Where Doyle’s book has the young man growing up and learning a lesson that he shouldn’t run around as per the wishes of a girl to win her love, Burroughs’ story has more to do with simple wish fulfilment for the reader. He’s simply the narrator, and Burroughs has no time for introductions. This story too starts with a man and a woman, but the woman he rescues from the water in the first chapter, and is with him all throughout the journey as his love interest. In the struggle, the U-Boat travels to unknown waters. The British Navy still shoots at them, however, and the German captives inside rebel as well. A man and a woman survive, are rescued by the British, who then manage to capture the submarine. Set during World War I, a German U-Boat shoots at an American liner in the English Channel. Compared to The Lost World, it is really wild and swashbuckling. The naive young Malone is our point of view, and he idolises Roxton.īurroughs’ The Land That Time Forgot (1918) has a very different start. He is the heroic adventurer, the hunter and sportsman, but he is a side-character. One member of the expedition is an Indiana Jones-type manly man named Lord John Roxton. The overall tone is humorous and witty, and very much focused on the scientific nature of the trip. Quite a shitty reason to put your life on the line, but hey, we’ve all been young and foolish. This pushes Malone to join the professor in a new scientific expedition to the mysterious jungle. She wants to love a hero and bask in the glory of his accomplishments. His girl tells him that, frankly, he isn’t good enough for her. He interviews a prickly professor about an expedition to South America, where the professor had found a hidden plateau full of strange creatures a year before, but nobody believed him. The Lost World (1912) has the first person narrative of a young, insignificant journalist named Edward Malone.

The lost world novel doyle