Land under England

Im not the best reviewer in the whole world, and in fact, especially since (as of this moment) Im the *only* reviewer of this book, its kinda hard for me to say in words what I felt about this wonderful novel. What I can say is: Its in my top three of all time and its a crying shame that most people dont even know that it exists. I found it quite by accident too. Most of the time I carefully research each and every potential read that comes my way. This, was as a result of a friend of mine doing [...]

Written by Irishman Joseph O'Neil, this was one of the forgotten masterpieces on KEW's essential list. The author had a job in the Irish ministry of education, not hard to believe because he did like his wordage. Not that being a verbose author is such a bad thing; look what Will Shakespeare was able to accomplish. But all the narrative does make for a tiring read.The book is narrated from the POV of a man searching underground for his father. The narrator is descended from a long line of Roman [...]

Well that was really something. I was expecting 'Journey to the Center of the Earth' but instead got a dystopian story in the vain of the 'Time Machine' (but much better).A really nice original dystopia and deep psychological examination of how it came to be. This is when the book is at its best. The more our protagonist begins to understand this lost civilization the more interesting it becomes. For a brief period its a truly great novel before dropping slightly back to just really, really good [...]

This is touted as a classic of science fiction, but I found it dull and depressing. It starts off on a promising note: The story that I have to tell is a strange one--so strange indeed that many people may not believe it, and the fact that the events related in it happened in Great Britain itself will, probably, make it less credible than if it had happened in Central Africa or the wilds of Tibet or the lands round the sources of the , now so much favoured by travellers.But soon enough our narra [...]

Whew, finally done. I definitely agree with other reviewers that there was too much repetition & not enough dialogue, but I usually give anything tagged dystopian a try. Basically it's a novel about tyranny & mind control, but I'm sure there is a lot more meaning to the story that just flew over my head. The automatons kind of reminded me of the eloi in H.G. Wells "The Time Machine", but at least the eloi talked. I know "Land Under England" has been put up there with "Pilgrim's Progress" [...]

I really didn't like this. In fact I pretty much hated it. At times it was torture to make it through. The only reason I gave it 2 stars instead of 1 is that it is very original. I'm not going to go into it, but don't read it. Especially if you are at all claustrophobic. Pretty much the whole thing is underground, in the dark, etc.

Yes, it's a long hard slog to get through this book. But really all those underground metaphors about the meaning of life and breaking free from your past, err, I mean fatherStill, it's good for you and I'd encourage anyone to read it.

Exceedingly tedious style, filled with repetitions and pointless nattering. And almost no dialogue at allk! Seriously, it could have been cut in half without any problem at all, and possibly would've been at its best in the 50-100 page range. The delineation of the underground society is the only real point of interest, and unfortunately the narrator reacts to it all too often in that kneejerk pulpy way (the same kind of guy who points to the heretic in some hokey medieval movie and screams out, [...]

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