World Beneath Ice

Golden Amazon #7

by John Russell Fearn

The sun is dying. Astronomers can see that the Earth will soon become a frozen planet. All life will vanish from the surface, and the sea and air will freeze, as the light of the sun dwindles to that of a full moon. Mankind is forced to retreat underground, there to try surviving in vast underground habitats--trapped in a World Beneath Ice. Only one person on Earth has the scientific knowledge to rekindle the sun--the incredible Golden Amazon, a woman changed by surgery and genetic engineering into a superwoman. But she's been missing for eighteen months, lost in space.... Is this the end of humankind? Book One in The Golden Amazon Saga, a fantastic new SF adventure series wrenched from the pages of the pulps.

Genres: Science Fiction, Fantasy

190 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1949

About the author

A prolific author in various genres under his own name, John Francis Russell Fearn also used these pseudonyms: Astron del Martia, Brian Shaw, Conrad G. Holt, Dennis Clive, Frank Jones, Geoffrey Armstrong, Griff, Hugo Blayn, John Russell, K. Thomas Mark Denholm, Paul Lorraine, Polton Cross, Spike Gordon, Thornton Ayre, Vargo Statten, Volsted Gridban, Dom Passante, John Cotton, Ephriam Winiki, Lawrence F. Rose, Earl Titan, Ephraim Winiki.

John Russell Fearn was an extremely prolific and popular British writer, who began in the American pulps, then almost single-handedly drove the post-World War II boom in British publishing with a flood of science fiction, detective stories, westerns, and adventure fiction. He was so popular that one of his pseudonyms became the editor of Vargo Staten’s Science Fiction Magazine in the 1950’s! His work is noted for its vigor and wild imagination. He has always had a substantial cult following and has been popular in translation around the world.

Reviews

[Josh · Rating 3 out of 5]

The year is 2030-something and mankind has advanced to the stars. After conquering Mars, establishing a colony on the Moon, and mastering space travel, life is pretty good for us Earth dwellers until, the Sun starts to lose it’s power; dark spots on the surface spell doom for the entire planet and there’s only one person who can save humanity! Only, she’s not planet-side and isn’t in the good books of the collective world government…

Nevertheless, the genetically enhanced super being who is the Golden Amazon is made for heroism and won’t let anyone stand in her way of saving Earth, even if it means destroying other planets in the process, and brutally blowing apart sea monsters from the deep (just look at that cover!)!

Yeah – this is pretty farfetched but a hell of a lot of fun to read.

With these types of books you're not looking for deep and meaningful storytelling or high end literature, no, you want junk food for the mind and CONQUEST OF THE AMAZON delivers in spades.

Despite the super hero/semi villain character, being at the helm of her seventh story, CONQUEST OF THE AMAZON is very accessible to new readers (of which I am one), so if you come across this in a secondhand bookstore, I wouldn't hesitate in picking it up.

This review first appeared on my site: http://justaguywholikes2read.blogspot...

[Nicholas Whyte · Rating 2 out of 5]

http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/2010481.html[return][return]I have no idea why I got this book. The cover art is quite remarkable in its own right and possibly caught my eye. (My wife wondered how the nipple shields might be attached; myself I wonder how much practical use they are in combat.) It turns out to be the cover for the wrong book; the heroine of Conquest of the Amazon is blonde and wears a white suit, whereas this lady is dark-haired and not wearing anything much at all. More critically, the cover suggests a sword-and-sorcery romp, when in fact the Amazon is a near-future woman using her super-powers to keep the space lanes clear from marauding Martians and treacherous if handsome men from Jupiter. I'm sure it sold well anyway - heck, I must have bought it (or perhaps someone else bought it for me) - but I wonder how many early readers suffered buyer's remorse after realising that it wasn't the Conan ripoff they were expecting?[return][return]I vaguely knew of John Russell Fearn, of course, but I don't think I had read any of his works before. This turns out to be the seventh book in a series of twenty pulp adventures of the Amazon, who acquired super powers half a century ago at the age of three, and is exercising them in the cause of Good. It is, frankly, not a good book, yet I got through to the end after tossing Dagger Magic aside because it doesn't take itself too seriously. At first I was tweeting particularly eye-catching samples of Fearn's deathless prose -[return][return]"Book me a reservation on the next helicoliner following the Mount Everest route."[return][return]"The end of the world is within sight. I thought you should know that."[return][return]"This woman has always been a smooth talker. She can get out of any tight corner by using subtlety." [Subtlety, eh? The fiendish minx!][return][return]- but then I decided to just go with the flow, as the Amazon tries to simultaneously stop the Sun going out, hold back the glaciers, and resist the culture of the Great Red Spot. It's all utterly implausible, but it's a romantic portrayal of a future where a benevolent science rules and a superwoman saves the world. Short (126 pages) and rather sweet.

[Russell Forden · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was just so unbelievably bad that I loved it! It's really a comic book done as a pulp novel. I'm a sucker for these retro 'golden age' scifi things, but my god, the plot, the characters, the bad science, the retched, stiff dialogue! Everyone 'ejaculates'. I'm not kidding! But it's adorable. I have a copy with a different cover than the one featured. It shows the Amazon as an alluring dark-haired woman, scantily clad and standing over a muscled man (presumably the character Abna). But she's described as blonde in the book. I have absolutely no intention of selling or giving this away...

[Steven Davis · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fun little read. Of its era. The more that things change, certain (political) characteristics remain the same .. if not my way, then the end of the world. Arnside might not be a Putin, but then neither is Putin an Arnside. Surprisingly deeper than first might be expected.

[Karen · Rating 1 out of 5]

This isn't #1 in the series, it's actually #7, but the current publisher decided to ignore the previous six books because they were too dated. Personally I enjoyed their whole retro esthetic, but then I really hated this one.

Now to start off, you have to understand that it's a sequel. In the previous book Violet tricks an alien space fleet into flying into the Sun. Now, in this volume, we find that action has had terrible consequences. Kind of. For a start, it's only speculation. There's no actual evidence provided for this claim. The Sun has gone wonky. The alien space fleet was sent into the Sun. Someone needs to explain that correlation is not causation and that the Sun is actually quite big and it would take more than a dozen space ships hitting it to have any effect at all.

But anyway, the Sun isn't working right and it's all Violet's fault, even though she was saving Earth from alien invaders, so lets execute her, even though she's the only one that can save all life from going extinct. Because that makes so much sense.

Help appears in the form of one of the most blatant Mary Sues I've ever encountered in professional fiction, the creepy stalker, Abna. Stronger than the Amazon! Cleverer than the Amazon!, More technologically advanced than the Amazon! Better at everything than anybody else and built like a god to boot! And doesn't he like reminding everyone. He has apparently fallen in love with her while spying on her through his telescope. Which is taken by everyone as "twoo wuv", rather than being a creepy stalker man. Anyway, he's here to help the Amazon save the day.

Thankfully, at the end, Violet sees through him and sends him packing, but he's listed in subsequent books so I fear he'll win her over. Ugh.

I have been reading the series from the beginning, but this entry ground me to a halt, and I'm not sure when I'll work up the enthusiasm to continue. The science is nonsensical, everyone is an idiot, and the detestable Abna is set to become a recurring character, probably relegating the Golden Amazon to becoming a secondary character in her own series.

My recommendation: see if you can track down a copy of the first couple of books in the series The Golden Amazon and The Golden Amazon Returns and read them instead. They are much more fun.

[Johnny Le Bon · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was typical pulp science fiction from the 40s/50s. Not a bad read; light entertainment.