When the World Shook: Being an Account of the Great Adventure of Bastin, Bickley and Arbuthnot

by H. Rider Haggard

Overview

If representatives of an advanced civilization were to visit our planet today, would they be impressed or dismayed by the way we live?
When three adventurers, Bastin, Bickley and Arbuthnot, are marooned on a South Sea island, they discover an ancient crystal sepulchre. Inside are two Atlanteans who have been in a state of suspended animation for 250,000 years!
One of the awakened sleepers, the haughty Lord Oro, is the last of the Sons of Wisdom, a superior race who'd relied on their advanced technology to subjugate the planet's lesser peoples. The other Atlantean is Oro's daughter, Yva, heiress to the title of Queen of the Earth... who falls in love with Arbuthnot.
Using astral projection, Lord Oro visits London and the battlefields of the Western Front. Unimpressed with the state of the world in the early 20th century, he sets out to do what he's apparently done once before -- use a colossal gyroscope to drown the planet, and restart the course of human history.
A darkly humorous look at the politics and conflicts of his own era by an author best known for swashbuckling adventure novels (including the hugely popular "King Solomon's Mines") set in the context of the Scramble for Africa.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781481910743
Publisher:	CreateSpace Publishing
Publication date:	01/05/2013
Pages:	272
Product dimensions:	5.98(w) x 9.02(h) x 0.61(d)

About the Author

H. Rider Haggard was a popular English writer of adventure novels set in exotic locations, including "King Solomon's Mines" (considered one of the first of the Lost World genre) and "She." "When The World Shook," which features suspended animation and a machine capable of changing the tilt of the earth, is the most science-fictional of his writings.
James Parker was born in London in 1968. He is the author of "Turned On: A Biography of Henry Rollins" and a contributing editor at "The Atlantic."

Read an Excerpt

CHAPTER II BASTIN AND BICKLEY Behold me once more a man without an occupation, but now the possessor of about £900,000. It was a very considerable fortune, if not a large one in England; nothing like the millions of which I had dreamed, but still enough. To make the most of it and to be sure that it remained, I invested it very well, mostly in large mortgages at four per cent, which, if the security is good, do not depreciate in capital value. Never again did I touch a single speculative stock, who desired to think no more about money. It was at this time that I bought the Fulcombe property. It cost me about £120,000 of my capital, or with alterations, repairs, etc., say £150,000, on which sum it may pay a net two and a half per cent., not more. This £3,700 odd I have always devoted to the upkeep of the place, which is therefore in first-rate order. The rest I live on, or save. These arrangements, with the beautifying and furnishing of the house and the restoration of the church in memory of my father, occupied and amused me for a year or so, but when they were finished time began to hang heavy on my hands. What was the use of possessing about £20,000 a year when there was nothing upon which it could be spent? For after all my own wants were few and simple and the acquisition of valuable pictures and costly furniture is limited by space. Oh! in my small way I was like the weary King Ecclesiast. For I too made me great works and had possessions of great and small cattle (I tried farming and lost money over it!) and gathered me silver and gold and the peculiar treasure of kings, which I presume means whatever a man in authority chiefly desires, and soforth. But "behold all was vanity and vexation of spirit, and there was no profit under the sun." So, notwithsta...