To the Center of the Earth by Greig Beck
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Well now, what did I just read?

Was it a slightly updated version of Jules Verne's Journey to the Center of the Earth with modern characters and equipment? With fantastical underground scenarios and adventuresome events?

Or was it a weak soup of characters that I could never get into even enough to enjoy their horrible deaths?


Hmm. I suppose it could be both?


This is an example of a pretty interesting and hopeful re-creation of a classic that I admit I was pretty enthusiastic about, despite some slight trepidation, all the way to their first descent into the bowels of hell.

And then it kinda fizzled. What descriptions of those bowels there were, it never felt like there was enough. The treatments of the characters as they died, or even the basic wear and care of said characters, was almost nonexistent -- even compared to a very low-bar mass-produced slasher flick.

"Ah, he died, ah well, kthxbye."

Fortunately, there were two teams trying to race down to the bottom, so we had plenty of fresh human stock for the cave-grinder.


It's really a shame tho. There WAS some promise. And if you don't care about characters at all, this is probably a fine, adventuresome, read.

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