Return To The Lost World

Luke Challenger Adventures #1

by barlow-steve-skidmore-steve

Cool book about the lost world.

Genres: Adventure, Fantasy, Dinosaurs

327 pages, Paperback

First published August 30, 2010

Reviews

[Michael Fierce · Rating 3 out of 5]

An exciting read with non-stop action, dinosaurs, gliders, a train, a hot air balloon, an airship, heroic characters, evil villains, and a revisit to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World.

It starts off with a BANG!, and never lets up after that. Set in the 30's it felt more like an Indiana Jones adventure than it did The Lost World.

Similarish in feel to Greg Bear's "Dinosaur Summer", that also returned to the Lost World.

The main characters are Luke, grandson of the late great Professor Challenger and his best friend, Nick, son of Edward Malone.

These heroes face off vs. villains straight out of the pulp magazines of the 30's.

It's as much in the same world as The Mummy movies with Brendan Fraser & Rachel Weisz as it is with The Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. In fact, the two 15 year old boys exploits are very similar in nature to the boy in "The Mummy Returns" and to Short Round in "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom", only both are older and a bit more mature.

In the midst of enjoying this a great deal I have to say some of the YA dialogue made me cringe a couple of times throughout.

Once they arrived on the plateau of The Lost World itself, it got equal measures better as it did equal measures worse.

The dinosuar action was cool and rewarding but my anticipations turned to dread when a particular plot sequence I had suspected was coming, in fact, did. I don't want to raise any spoilers here but I was a little shocked not with the sequence but with the decision-making made on the part of the writers that seriously felt out of character with The Lost World I knew so well and with the logic of how it came about.

For writers who have natural storytelling gifts, and who have evidently written over a hundred books, I felt they really erred on their mutual decision on not only one particular character development but two. This, in turn, redeemed itself luckily enough, due to another twist, and it was enough for me to sort my through my frustrations and run with it to the end. With that said, what could've been a 5 star entertainment dipped momentarily to a 3 and thankfully saved itself in the closing chapters to merit a 4 in my book.

I plan on reading the rest of this series, of which, the next one revisits 20,00 Leaguse Under The Sea.

*As an added note, check out the colorful eye-grabbing cover illustration done by the gifted Sam Hadley: A monstrous Allosaurus with an airship in the sky against a dark red backdrop with bright blood red lettering. Awesome!

[Darren · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I was a child I watched a fair amount of TV. I have never felt that I watched too much (we did only have three channels after all - I remember the excitement I felt when the fourth was launched), as I also read a great deal and did all the other things that active young boys enjoyed in the days before PS3s, X-Boxes and so on. Looking back, I think BBC2 must have been the channel I watched the most, for it was this channel that introduced me to the old black and white Republic serials and many, many films that I still hold dear today. Films such as Rathbone's Sherlock Holmes series, the Ealing comedies, and a string of classic monster movies including It Came From Beneath The Sea, The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms and The Valley of Gwangi. From these cinematic classics was born in me a love of adventure stories, both written and on the big screen, and this love remains today.

The classic adventure stories that I read then, and still reread occasionally when time permits, were books such as Jules Verne's Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea and Journey To The Centre of the Earth; H. Rider Haggard's She and King Solomon's Mines; Stevenson's Treasure Island; and Sir Arthus Conan Doyle's The Lost World. Of all of these two still make an appearance in my list of all time favourites: the first is Treasure Island (although I acknowledge that the style of prose makes it a challenge for many young readers today) and the second is Conan Doyle's adventure masterpiece, and all of all of these I think that this is the book that is still most accessible to young readers today. Verne's underwater epic is a fantastic story, but unless you read the abridged version there is far too much padding and tedious descriptions of underwater flora and fauna for it to have huge appeal these days. The Lost World, on the other hand, has none of this padding. Simply put, it contains everything a young reader wanting to try a classic story could ask for: action, adventure, danger, and dinosaurs!

It was then with a confused mix of excitement and worry that I recently contacted Usborne and asked them if I could have a review copy of a book I had seen mentioned online. This book was called Return To The Lost World, and the scant details I could find mentioned that it was about a boy called Luke Challenger, grandson of hero of Conan Doyle's original story and set 23 years later, in 1933. My first thought was "Fantastic! An action adventure story set in that exciting pre-war period, based on an original work that I loved", but a fraction of a moment later I thought "What if it is rubbish? Will it taint my feelings for the original?". I was encouraged a little by the fact that the authors are well known names to me - Steve Barlow and Steve Skidmore have been writing together for this age group for many years.

With hindsight I am now wondering what on earth I was worrying about - I really enjoyed this book; it is a superb reworking of Conan Doyle's original story, combined with the non-stop action that modern readers adore. The two Steves have taken the premise set up by the original story and used it to create a fast-paced adventure story, which feels both retro and modern at the same time. It feels retro in that it is (unfashionably?) set in an era that is not often used in kids adventure stories these days (and yet proved so apt for my all time favourite film, Raiders of the Lost Ark); it is all also a good old-fashioned adventure story, without gadgets, mobile phones, the internet, etc. Yet it feels modern as it is written to appeal to children of today, and therefore has a very fast pace, and many a set-piece action scene. It this respect is almost cinematic and I would loveto see this on the big screen.

Return to the Lost World introduces us to Luke Challenger and his friend Nick Malone. As I have already mentioned, Luke's grandfather was the George Challenger of the original story but the links do not end there. Luke's godfather is Lord John Roxton and Nick Malone's father is Edward Malone, both of whom were also part of the original team that ventured to that amazing place deep within the Brazilian jungle. Luke has inherited his grandfather's adventurous streak, and both boys feel stifled in the posh boarding school they have to attend.

Model pupils they are not, and at the start of the book we find them having managed to bluff their way across Europe and into an international glider competition in Austria, a competition they hope to win with a glider of their own design. Luke's father heads up Challenger Industries, and the family live within the grounds of the company's research divisiion, so Luke and Nick managed to build their glider by 'salvaging' materials and forging requisition slips. Of course, as a result of an incident that I will not spoil for you the boys are found out and soon find themselves been lectured to by Luke's father. However, the actions of the boys are not his only concern, for Luke's mother (who is one of the world's foremost palaeontologists) has gone missing and it would appear that she has taken herself off to Brazil in order to see the Lost World for herself. Thanks to his grandfather Luke is now one of the few people alive who knows the location of the infamous plateau and after a great deal of pressure on their father the boys soon find themselves embarking on their own journey to South America. And this is when the action really begins for there seems to be another intrested party, a mysterious group whose members all seem to carry a distinctive tattoo - a snake entwined around a spear.

So, in the melting pot we have: a mysterious secret society hell bent on taking over the world; a 'lost world' inhabited by dinosuars, on a plateau set deep within the Brazilian jungle; transatlantic travel the old fashioned way in flying boats that have to stop to refuel several times during their journey; two boys who have an almost unquenchable thirst for adventure; and the ultimate quest - to rescue mum from the bad giys. What more could an adventure loving boy want from a modern adventure story?

The characters in Return to the Lost World are great. Some critics may question their lack of realism but this is the sort of book where characters are supposed to be larger than life and suspension of disbelief a pre-requisite, and in many ways this is far more believeable a premise than that set up in Muchamore's CHERUB series or the Alex Rider books. Teenage boys working for the Secret Service? You're having a laugh! This book is a very good introduction to the characters of Luke Challenger and Nick Malone, but as the first book in what I have been reliably informed is intended to be a series there are obviously a few shortcomings as far as character development are concerned. Do I care? Not one little bit as the story more than makes up for this, with its fast pace and the many twists and turns that leave us wondering just who the boys can and cannot trust.

I do have one small moan though. Much as I loved the action-packed incidents that Luke and Nick experience during their journey to the plateau, I personally would have liked them to have spent more time in the 'lost world' itself. The proof copy I was sent has 312 pages, and it is just as we are entering the final third of the book that the boys finally make it to the plateau. This is such an exciting place that I feel that it would have benefitted from a few more chapters to give it justice and the climatic fight scene in the 'lost world' seemed a little too rushed for my liking.

I mentioned just now that this is supposed to be the first in a series, yet we are not left with a huge cliffhanger ending. Everything is brought to a satisfying end, although we are left with that lingering appetite for more. What will the Sons of Destiny try next in their quest for ultimate power? Will they seek revenge on Luke and Nick for their part in foiling their plans? I for one cannot wait to read more, especially as I have 'heard' that the two Steves intend to bring elements of other classic stories into the Luke Challoner series, including both Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea and King Solomon's Mines. With any luck not only will these new books entertain boy readers of today, but will also encourage them to hunt out and read the original stories on which they are based.

[Lauren · Rating 3 out of 5]

I picked up a proof copy of this book at a publisher event and it appealed to me as a Jurassic Park fan.

I think the first stumbling block I had is the title makes you assume it's a sequel when in fact it's about a return to a specific location in the Brazilian rainforest.

The premise of the plot is good. Loved the action and pace but was surprised about the amount of graphic deaths in the book,so if you were reading this to a child (young adult book) you might need to take the death scenes into account.

I wish it had been longer. Flashes of similarities to Percy Jackson and Alex Rider I'd still like to understand what happened to the plateau and the Challenger family

[C.O. Bonham · Rating 5 out of 5]

Utterly exciting. This is great as a stand alone adventure, but even better if you've previously read Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World.

Having already read and fallen in love with the aforementioned novel, I was naturally curious to see how true they stayed to it. I was not disappointed. I could tell that the authors loved the book as much as I did and had put a lot of thought into plotting out the return.

Return to the Lost World features Luke Challenger. Grandson to the late Professor Challenger from the original expedition. Luke's mother, a paleontologist, has been trying to pry the location of the lost world out of her father in law for years. Once her son inherits his grandfather's expedition journal, the plot writes itself. Well aside from the Japanese assassin and the Nazis and the secret society bent on world domination.

Yes it reads like a young Indiana Jones movie, but that's not a bad thing.

This a thrilling homage to a SciFi classic, sure to entice reluctant readers to pick up the original.

[Pam · Rating 5 out of 5]

5 stars from my 9 year old son. Only 3 stars for me. My son absolutely loved this book and could not put it down. I think some parts of this book might be a bit much for some younger readers.

[Abby · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was a great adventure!