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tregina's review against another edition
2.0
Because this is believed to be the first work of Canadian speculative fiction, and because it has an oddly awesome title, I really wanted to love this. And there are moments of great imagination, but mostly it talks in circles, lectures, and never quite thinks through the implications of the society it sets up, taking the easy and obvious route every time. Plus, period-accurate but no less appalling for it racism and sexism. What I ended up liking best was the framing story, the boatload of what were essentially nineteenth-century trust fund brats portrayed as exactly that; I would have hated them in real life, but appreciated them in the context of the story.
grayjay's review against another edition
4.0
I loved this book. It's difficult to wrap your head around at times, and there may be some faults in the logic of its satire, but it is fun and inventive, and presents a paradoxical look at material and class issues.
pigrazia's review against another edition
2.0
Due e mezzo. Lettura scorrevole, senza infamia e senza lode. Alla fine però non credo di trovare credibile la storia della popolazione con la cultura opposta a quella di qualsiasi popolazione umana!
woolfsfahan's review against another edition
3.0
My prof edited this book lol. Interesting read because of its Orientalist content—especially the invocation of cannibalism and sacrifice as "crowning horrors" and the protagonist's bafflement with the south pole's gender roles.
kaydot's review against another edition
3.5
Not what I expected from “Canada’s first science fiction,” but once I realized that De Mille was writing speculative fiction about recent discoveries at the time (like Antarctica and dinosaurs), I got it.
I liked the device of having a secondary plot where people are reading the story and explaining/debating the “science”.
But historical significance aside, the story is just okay.
I liked the device of having a secondary plot where people are reading the story and explaining/debating the “science”.
But historical significance aside, the story is just okay.
babyfacedoldsoul's review against another edition
5.0
I really enjoyed this book, and found it very fantastical. I got into it immediately, but found the last 30 pages to be quite slow. It ended differently than I thought it would, but looking back on the ending I had planned I realized it was a literary impossibility.
kesgeiszler's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racism, Murder, Antisemitism, and Xenophobia
Moderate: Cannibalism
chutten's review against another edition
3.0
Parts "Princess of Mars", "The Lost World", "Gulliver's Travels", and more, this was an interesting read.
That being said, holy crap people were open about their prejudices in the 1880s. The sexism and racism kept rearing up. It's probably best to take that as a product of the age it was written.
I'm of mixed opinion about the use of the framing device of the four indolent men becalmed on their yacht. I liked the half of their role that was as a sardonic, four-part Greek chorus. I wasn't as fond of the half acting as a dry Appendix of dinosaurs and language.
The ending was cute as well.
That being said, holy crap people were open about their prejudices in the 1880s. The sexism and racism kept rearing up. It's probably best to take that as a product of the age it was written.
I'm of mixed opinion about the use of the framing device of the four indolent men becalmed on their yacht. I liked the half of their role that was as a sardonic, four-part Greek chorus. I wasn't as fond of the half acting as a dry Appendix of dinosaurs and language.
The ending was cute as well.
kentcryptid's review against another edition
2.0
Four yachtsmen sailing out of Madeira discover the titular manuscript which relates a strange tale of a lost world at the South Pole. The Lost World by Arthur Conan Doyle definitely owes a debt to this work, but A Strange Manuscript... is more allegorical and less entertaining than Conan Doyle's pulp classic.
Too much of the story is devoted to the cave-dwelling cannibalistic Antarctic inhabitants' nihilistic philosophy of life, which somehow manages to make a story of a secret world inhabited both by a lost civilisation and by dinosaurs downright dull.
The frame narrative, in which the discoverers of the manuscript discuss the story as it's in progression and speculate on its veracity, is more interesting than the story itself, although weighed down by large amounts of exposition about palaeontology and linguistics.
Too much of the story is devoted to the cave-dwelling cannibalistic Antarctic inhabitants' nihilistic philosophy of life, which somehow manages to make a story of a secret world inhabited both by a lost civilisation and by dinosaurs downright dull.
The frame narrative, in which the discoverers of the manuscript discuss the story as it's in progression and speculate on its veracity, is more interesting than the story itself, although weighed down by large amounts of exposition about palaeontology and linguistics.