The Greatest Adventure

by Eric Temple Bell, John Taine (pseud.)

Armchair fiction presents extra large paperback editions of the best in classic science fiction novels. If lost worlds filled with prehistoric monsters appeal to your adventurous side, then you won't want to miss "The Greatest Adventure" by heralded sci-fi author John Taine. They ripped the veil off the past. Dr. Eric Lane's party of five crept across the frozen Antarctic seeking the discovery of the ages. For this explorer-archeologist was following the startling account of a sea captain who had fished a lifeless organism from distant Antarctic waters-a devilish monstrosity that was entirely unknown to the science of modern man. But upon close scientific examination, Dr. Lane discovered this new species wasn't something from Mother Nature. Its makeup and composition had all the earmarks of some kind of wild genetic engineering, which left Lane to beg the question: Had there once been intelligences on Earth so much higher than our own that they could create new life forms? But even with all his excitement, Dr. Lane was only expecting to find fossils, and perhaps even some ruins. He did not suspect-until too late-that he was opening a Pandora's box of living horrors.

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Adventure, Pulp

216 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1928

About the author

Eric Temple Bell (February 7, 1883 – December 21, 1960) was a mathematician and science fiction author born in Scotland who lived in the U.S. for most of his life. He published his non-fiction under his given name and his fiction as John Taine.

Reviews

[Sandy · Rating 3 out of 5]

In the 1957 Universal film "The Land Unknown," a quartet of men and one woman discover a tropical wonderhell 3,000 feet below sea level in the frozen wastes of Antarctica, replete with killer plants and savage dinosaurs. But, as it turns out, this was not the first time that four men and one woman had battled prehistoric monsters and inimical flora in a surprisingly balmy valley on the frozen continent. That honor, it would seem, goes to a book called, fittingly enough, "The Greatest Adventure," written by John Taine. In actuality, "John Taine" was the pen name of Scottish mathematician Eric Temple Bell, who used his own name only when he authored books on science and math, reserving the pseudonym for when he wrote works of science fiction, of which he created 15, starting with 1924's "The Purple Sapphire" and ending with 1954's "G.O.G. 666." "The Greatest Adventure" was his fifth sci-fi outing, and was initially released in 1929, when Bell/Taine was 46. The book was originally released as a $2.50 E.P. Dutton hardcover, with a Jack Perkins dust jacket depicting what looks like several white, bipedal boar creatures on the cover. But the novel is perhaps best remembered today due to the 35-cent Ace paperback reprint of 1960 (D-473, for all you collectors out there), with a blonde woman cowering before a demon-faced, fanged brontosaurus (?) on its cover. And if you're wondering just why the plant-eating brontosaurus should be drawn with such pointy fangs in its gaping maw, not to worry...that aspect is covered during the course of Taine's story.

In the book, the reader is introduced to Dr. Eric Lane, a biologist who has long endeavored to understand the building blocks of life. Lane, a widower, lives in San Francisco with his 18-year-old daughter Edith, and on the day of his own 40th birthday, is given a most unexpected gift. A whaler captain named Anderson, knowing of Lane's passion for investigating unusual marine specimens, brings him the corpse of a reptile/fish/bird creature the likes of which the doctor has never seen. The animal had risen to the surface of the sea near Antarctica, along with several thousand other monstrous oddities. Anderson's first mate, Ole Hansen, also produces some rocks that had been found near the frozen shore; rocks covered with undecipherable pictogram inscriptions. Lane calls in his young friend John Drake, a nerdish archeologist, who can make neither head nor tail of the unknown writing. But the baits have been set, and the quartet of men (yes, and one woman) decides to go to the frozen wasteland and investigate. Thus, after six months of preparations and training on their part, the whaler does indeed set sail for Antarctica, only to come upon a beach strewn with the carcasses of prehistoric beasts subtly different from any ever suspected from fossil remains. And later, the monsters' living brethren are discovered, in that fertile valley 3,000 feet below sea level. The manner in which our hardy band of five ("The Greatest Adventure" features virtually no other characters) faces these prehistoric brutes, searches for hidden oil deposits, riddles out the secret of those glyphs, and endeavors to make it back to civilization in one piece comprises the bulk of this most interesting saga.

As it turns out, the title of Taine's book has a double meaning. Of course, "the greatest adventure" refers to the expedition and its manifold discoveries, but as Lane tells us at one point, the words also describe what he feels is mankind's most important goal: the discovery of how to create life, Frankenstein style. (I will go so far as to reveal that Lane's feelings regarding the desirability of this scientific pursuit undergo a radical reassessment by the book's conclusion.) And for those readers expecting a vacuous mélange of man vs. dinosaur here, based on that sensationalistic Ace cover, let me say that the old adage is true: You really can't judge a book by its cover. Taine's book is intelligent and a lot dryer than one might expect, despite having any number of exciting sequences. Among the best: Our hardy band explores an area covered with blowholes thousands of feet in depth, out of which erupt gas and flames at regular intervals; Ole and Edith fly into a cave (feminists should note that Edith proves herself not only every bit as spunky and courageous as the men, but also the most competent pilot) and get trapped with a horde of shambling beasts and flying reptiles; Drake figures out a way to eliminate a gaggle of creatures utilizing blowhole-spawned carbon monoxide; the men are trapped in a cliff-side cavern with a nastily inquisitive dinosaur and must dynamite their way to safety; and our team battles the rapidly growing plant life that has erupted from some long-dormant spores overnight. Also leavening out some of the dryness are touches of wry humor that Taine scatters about; Ole, in particular, is a highly amusing character, given to loquacious theorizing on every matter that pops up, thus exasperating his captain to no end. The book is also unexpectedly rife with literary references (such as to Milton's "Paradise Lost," Maeterlinck's play "The Blue Bird," Shakespeare's "Richard III") and Biblical allusions. "The Greatest Adventure" is hardly an empty-headed affair, and its author demonstrates that he is not above making up his own words at times to suit his purposes (or is "stuntist" actually a word?).

Still, I had any number of problems with Taine's work here that prevents me from giving it a higher grade. For one thing, "The Greatest Adventure" is just a tad too dry, with reams of exposition on those darn blowholes, for example. And yet, some sections of the book feel overwritten (to wit, "[the ship] headed due south in the sparkling air, cleaving a sea of chrysoprase," and "The archaean rocks are an unread history..."), strangely enough. The author is guilty of some casual racism in his story (use of the "N word"; one character referring to Lane's Chinese manservant as "your mandarin"), although it is not mean spirited, and must be considered as an unfortunate norm for its era. The book's romance (between Edith and Drake, of course) seems to have been shoehorned in as an afterthought, and not enough information about the prehistoric men of the frozen continent is vouchsafed by the author, for my money. More troubling for this reader, though, were a few out-and-out flubs that scientist Bell was guilty of in this novel. He tells us that the Age of the Dinosaur ended around 9 million years ago, whereas that figure should be closer to 65 million. In addition, he tells us that the classic quote regarding the perfect cup of coffee ("as black as the devil, as sweet as love and as hot as hell") derives from a Spanish phrase, whereas it has usually been attributed to Talleyrand, a Frenchman. And while I'm nitpicking, wasn't John Fiske the author of the book "Through Nature to God," not Herbert Spencer?

But enough quibbling. Even with these minor problems, "The Greatest Adventure" is a wonderfully memorable read. My own 1960 Ace edition was, sadly enough, falling apart as I read it, but not before I turned the last yellowed and crumbling page a fairly satisfied customer. Whether or not the book was the inspiration for the Universal film 28 years later is unimportant; the novel stands on its own as a commendable entertainment...especially for those readers who want to see what happens when a dinosaur gets a poison-tipped knife stuck into its eye! Spoiler alert: It isn’t pretty!

(By the way, this review originally appeared on the FanLit website at http://www.fantasyliterature.com/ ... a most ideal destination for all fans of John Taine....)

[George K. · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Η μεγάλη περιπέτεια", εκδόσεις Ωρόρα.

Βαθμολογία: 7/10

Ενενήντα χρόνια πέρασαν από τότε που εκδόθηκε για πρώτη φορά το "Η μεγάλη περιπέτεια", ένα μάλλον παραγνωρισμένο παλπ μυθιστόρημα που συνδυάζει την κλασική περιπέτεια και την επιστημονική φαντασία. Είχα αρκετό καιρό να διαβάσω κάτι παρόμοιο και η αλήθεια είναι ότι το όλο στιλ και, φυσικά, η όλη ατμόσφαιρα που συναντάει κανείς σε τέτοιου είδους περιπέτειες, μου έλειψαν πάρα πολύ. Μου αρέσουν πολύ τέτοιου είδους ιστορίες, αλλά για κάποιο λόγο τον τελευταίο καιρό έμεινα αρκετά μακριά τους.

Το μεγαλύτερο μέρος της ιστορίας διαδραματίζεται στα παγωμένα εδάφη της Ανταρκτικής, όπου μια μέρα η θάλασσα άρχισε να... ξερνάει προϊστορικά τέρατα. Τίποτε άλλο δεν ήθελε ο Δρ. Λέιν, για να τα δει από κοντά και να λύσει το μυστήριο. Μια ομάδα θα συγκροτηθεί με σκοπό την ανακάλυψη άγνωστων πλασμάτων, αλλά ίσως και πολιτισμών. Όμως, μήπως τελικά, κάποια μέρη πρέπει να μείνουν ανεξερεύνητα και κάποια πλάσματα να αφεθούν στην ησυχία και την απομόνωσή τους;

Κατά τη γνώμη μου, το τελικό αποτέλεσμα είναι από μέτριο έως καλούτσικο. Σίγουρα πέρασα ωραία και ευχάριστα την ώρα μου, αλλά δεν συγκινήθηκα και ιδιαίτερα. Κάποια πράγματα στην πλοκή δεν με έπεισαν, κάποια άλλα από ένα σημείο και μετά με κούρασαν, ενώ δεν μπορώ να πω ότι δέθηκα με κάποιον από τους χαρακτήρες, που μου φάνηκαν κάπως μονοδιάστατοι και όχι πειστικοί. Η γραφή αρκετά καλή και ευκολοδιάβαστη, με ορισμένες ωραίες και γλαφυρές περιγραφές τοπίων και γεγονότων, όμως η χιουμοριστική διάθεση του συγγραφέα έπρεπε να είναι πιο μετριασμένη. Το βιβλίο προτείνεται υπό προϋποθέσεις στους λάτρεις των παλπ περιπετειών επιστημονικής φαντασίας.

[Derek · Rating 3 out of 5]

In all, it comes off as a mix of The Lost World (the Conan Doyle version) or possibly The Land That Time Forgot with a heavy dose of At the Mountains of Madness by the end.

The tone of the story is unexpectedly light and mildly humorous, using both character humor (Ole Hanssen the first mate fashions himself a learned man and at intervals boldly announces having theories, to be abruptly shut down by the other characters) and a narrator that dips into the flippant in word choice. While this leavens the story, I found it grating by the end.

The presence of dinosaur monsters--well spoiled by the cover art and back cover text--actually does the scientific aspects of the story a disservice.The characters establish that the monsters are the evolutionary development of a virulent, destructive artificial spore, but it is the spore itself that forms the more interesting threat. The evolutionary science used to justify the monsters just doesn't hold water; I would have preferred the dinosaurs be dinosaurs in the lost world sense, and have the spore be unrelated. Removing the dinosaurs from the equation brings out the Mountains of Madness similarities and the antediluvian civilization aspects, which I found far more intriguing and only cursorily dealt with.

[Jeff Thomas · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm not sure if it's dated, and this was a decent, stylish book in its time, but that time has long passed, or if it was never really very well conceived or executed.

It's awkward, absurd, and at times, impossible.

[Erik Graff · Rating 3 out of 5]

Found a reproduction of this book cover on Flickr, but don't recall the contents of the novel, just having owned and read it as a kid along with hundreds of other cheap science fiction paperbacks.

[Jacob Elliott · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was super let down by this book. The premise sounded fun and the cover of my edition is wacky and weird and wonderful but unfortunately I could never quite get into this book. It was honestly a huge slog to finish and I found myself skim reading just to get to the end of lengthier chapters by the end. The characters weren't compelling, the writing was super dry, and the plot didn't really go in an action packed direction. It wasn't slow per say but it wasn't fast either. Just somewhere meandering in the middle and I was glad to finish it by the end. I would say for me it was 1.5 to 2 stars, but I'll lean closer to 2 here on Goodreads.

[Filbi · Rating 2 out of 5]

Better than The Purple Sapphire, but only just. Taine/Bell uses the science-fiction format to explore some neat theories about geology and evolution, and wrote some neat action scenes, but forgot to include interesting characters, conflict, or stakes beyond whether or not the protagonists will make money. But at least it's not grossly racist like the last book of his I read.

[Brian Hutzell · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book offers a lot in terms of adventure, but little in the way of character development. The one attempt to portray a love relationship is almost comically abbreviated and dry. Even so, the action proceeds at such a breakneck pace that this book makes for fun reading. The ending zips in out of nowhere and almost gives the reader whiplash.

[KDS · Rating 3 out of 5]

Whilst inconsistent and poorly written at times, there were plenty of cool moments involving weird dinosaurs, lost civilisations, evil spores and giant fire geysers.

Oh and they blow up Antarctica.

[LAURIE · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting as a review of early scifi. The interpersonnal interactions were the most interesting and unpredictable.

[Mike Mclatchey · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this short novel as part of the Robert Price anthology The Antarktos Cycle. It's placed there as a precursor to H. P. Lovecraft's At The Mountains of Madness, which is a favorite of mine; however, while The Greatest Adventure may be a precursor in terms of it being an Antarctic exploration based on science and the possibility of a lost prehistory, it does one thing I just don't see remarked on in any review of it I've seen and that is it's extremely funny and downright ludicrous in all the best ways and that is something that Lovecraft never was. John Taine was a scientist who used that knowledge to create what is essentially fairly early science fiction and so like a lot of people of his era he's tasked for having poor characters and all the sorts of faults we tend to hold a modern eye on (like yeah it can be a touch racist and Taine's female character seems somewhat cliché for the era). And while the characters are fairly static and don't seem to be changed much by the plot, they are actually all really well drawn and the interaction of the main quintet is absolutely hysterical at times, in fact they remind me a little of the types of absurd yet extreme heroic types you might see in an Edward Whittemore novel. I can't even think of too much fiction this early that is this Python-esque with all the dry, sarcastic and barbed witticisms being thrown around. Sure when Taine needs to throw down the science it can bog down a bit, but the dude was pretty clever and in many ways way ahead of his time. It was a lot of fun and I'll definitely be checking more of his stuff out, as this sort of weird Theosophist-sourced, lost race, early history sort of thing is still the kind of thing I find highly enjoyable. A great find indeed.

[Jay Rothermel · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a short, entertaining lost world novella. It was included in the anthology The Antarktos Cycle: Horror and Wonder at the Ends of the Earth edited by Robert M. Price, a copy of which I recently acquired.

The Greatest Adventure follows a small expedition to the south pole, intent on finding oil reserves.

Unlike most lost worldfiction of the pulp era, it was initially published as a Knopf hardcover.

There is plenty of action, and a plucky aviatrix heroine.

Free online here: https://www.gutenberg.ca/ebooks/taine...

[Wekoslav Stefanovski · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ah, the radium age, the forgotten period of sci-fi. To be honest, it's mostly deservedly so, and this is not an exception.

The narration is OK, the characters are OK, the story is mostly OK, but the feeling is that it's dated too much to be even remotely contemporary, yet, not dated enough to be a classic of a bygone age.