Reviews

In 1912, Doyle took his Victorian readers deep into the South American jungles where, high atop a treacherous plateau, a small band of British explorers encountered a terrifying world of prehistoric creatures long thought lost to the sands of time. The adventurers included a young newspaper reporter, Ed Malone; the swashbuckling aristocrat, Lord Roxton; the skeptical scientist, Professor Summerlee; and the brilliant and bombastic Professor Challenger, who leads the party. Doyle unfolds high adventure at its best with fantastic encounters with pterodactyls, stegosaurs and cunning ape -men. Glen McCready's performance captures the time and tone of Doyle's material perfectly without straying into melodrama. He nicely balances Malone's sense of youthful wonder with the professors' scientific pragmatism, while fully exploiting the humor spread strategically throughout, planting numerous chuckles among the thrills. McCready's entertaining reading more than fulfills the author's introductory wish to "give one hour of joy to the boy who's half a man, or the man who's half a boy." (Feb.) Copyright 2008 Reed Business Information.

Conan Doyle presents one of his favorite characters, outside of Sherlock Holmes: the irascible Professor Challenger. At the tale's outset, Challenger is attempting to convince the London Zoological Institute that he has discovered a plateau in South America that is inhabited by prehistoric creatures. Jeered and ridiculed by the audience, Challenger makes up his mind to prove the existence of this lost world. The Zoological Institute selects a committee of three to attempt to find Challenger's plateau. E.D. Mallone, one of the three, narrates the adventure in a series of journal entries that he plans to mail back to his newspaper along the way. That is, if he manages to survive this garden of sorts where Jurassic Era creatures roam. The Lost World is admirably presented by reader Paul Hecht, whose narration captures the sense of adventure that Conan Doyle so skillfully portrayed. This title is sure to be popular among Conan Doyle's fans as well as folks who enjoyed Michael Crichton's Jurassic Park (Knopf, 1990) and its sequel and paean to Conan Doyle, The Lost World (Audio Reviews, LJ 11/15/95).‘Theresa Connors, Arkansas Technological Univ., Russellville