FORGOTTEN BOOK: THE DEAD WORLD

The Dead World by F. Paul Wilson (first published in Worlds of Edgar Rice Burroughs, edited by Robert T. Garcia & Mike Resnick, 2013; published as a separate e-Book, 2015)

This is actually a novella, but I'm including it here because 1) it received a separate publication, and 2) what the hell, we all need an excuse to get back to the fantastic visions of Edgar Rice Burroughs.

The Dead World is a Pellucidar story, taking place in that unusual world located at the Earth's core, the subject of five novels from 1922 to 1944, plus one collection of stories published in 1963.  Pellucidar is a land at the Earth's core, which can be accessed by an opening in the "polar region," which is how David Inness and the eccentric scientist Abner Perry originally entered it.  It's an "impossible" world, "five hundred miles below the crust...seven thousand miles in diameter, with a miniature sun suspended in the center."  Because the sun is stationary, there is no nighttime and the natives have no real sense of the passing of time.  Next to the sun is a small moon, about a mile from the surface, in a stationary position; this moon casts a shadow on just one area of Pellucidar -- the kingdom of Thuria, also known as the Land of Awful Shadow.  Thuria is occupied by post-Neanderthal humans, ruled by King Goork.  Pellucidar is also occupied by non-human races, including the Mahars -- cruel winged creatures that ruled the inner world until David Innes arrived, defeated them, and banished them to the "northern area."  (How one can tell what is the northern area on this strange world is something that neither Burroughs nor Wilson explain.)  David Innes became the Emperor of Pellucidar, ruling with his wife, the beautiful Sarian native Dian.  Innes takes his role seriously, which is why he makes occasional state visits to Thuria.

One one such visit, Innes and Goork are interrupted by Koort, Goork's second sun.  A large stone had some through the air and smashed the head of Koort's lidi, a saurian used for transport and other things.  The stone was actually a ball made of an unknown metal, which had come straight down from the sky from the mysterious moon, the "Dead World" of the title.  While examining the object, it released a plethora of red seeds, which soon sprouted into voraciously spreading plants.  Innes took a sample with him back home for Abner Perry to examine; b ut the plant died before he could return home.  Several days later, Koort arrived with the news that everyone on Thuria was dead, killed by a strange mist that had  been expelled from the plants; Koort himself had survived only because he had been away hunting.  Armed with gas masks designed by Abner Perry, Innes, Perry, and Koort return to Thuria to investigate.  They retrieve the bodies of Goork and his eldest son to take back with them.  The strange mist appears to be spreading both horizontally and vertically and threatens to take over all of Pellucudar.  Goork and his eldest soon revive -- they had been in suspended animation but revived once outside the range of the strange mist.

Innes realizes that he must travel to the Dead World of the moon to discover exactly what the threat to his world is.  The moon had always been beyond the reach of Pellucidan science but Abner Perry managed to design a balloon that could make the trip.  From the surface of Pellucidar, one could make out mountains, rivers, and bodies of water on the moon, but there has never been any sign of life on the Dead World.

As the balloon reaches the moon, Innes realizes that it is a hologram:  the landscape that they thought belonged to the moon was nothing more than a construct.  When the balloon passes through the hologram they discover that this moon was actually and artificial metal object.  Jus what is is and how it came to be is a mystery to be solved.  Along the way, Innes and Perry may discover the true nature of Pellucidar and how such an "impossible" place could exist.

Great fun, and perhaps an explanation of the world that Burroughs had created will-nilly by throwing out fantastic concept after fantastic concept.  Could the Burroughs' creation actually align with twenty-first century rationality?  You have to read it to see.

(I also got a kick out of a throwaway reference to the Minunians, the "ant men of Africa," from Burroughs' 1924 novel Tarzan and the Ant Men.  We all remember that Tarzan had travelled to Pellucidar in the 1929 novel Tarzan at the Earth's Core.  Just a little Easter Egg for Burroughs fans...And just for jollies, let's throw in a bit of Lovecraft and a dash of Charles Fortean "We are property.")