Hollow World
Influential books on my development
When I started writing The Luminous Citadel of New Atlantis (which is only a working title) I was putting my tongue in my cheek and working up a hollow world that stemmed from some early reading and from knowing that the science doesn’t work that way. It also taps into deep-rooted human urges, as these books did. None of them are directly influencing the story I’m writing, but they all have elements that I’m tying into the work I am doing. I am what I have read, all my life. I don’t write from a vacuum, no more than any other author or artist creates de novo.
In no particular order, then, these are the books I was thinking about while starting on the hollow world project. All of them are in public domain and freely available online, should you have missed out on reading them!
The Lost World by Arthur Conan Doyle is not a hollow world or world hidden inside the planet, but it is a story of a place where the main character braves great dangers to win fair maid. It is also a story that touches on the human drive to explore, discover unknowns, and learn more, ever more. Men like this are born to every generation, and their soul thrills to the idea of seeing what lies in the undiscovered frontiers of our universe.
The Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne (and here, in ebook, the other link is audio) is perhaps the earliest of the hollow world stories. You’ll also start to note the theme of an older mentor or teacher type, and a young man pulled into the adventure not so much reluctantly as perhaps unknowing where it will take him. The elder doesn’t always have the younger’s best interests in mind…
At the Earth’s Core by Edgar Rice Burroughs (one of my favorite authors in my youth) involves an invention, a theory, and a world set aside from the progresses of the world above. This is the start of a series set in the same weird location, so the resolution allows for more drama, rather than a satisfying conclusion. Life is like that.
I hope you can explore these books and see the resonance with my project. I don’t know yet if it’s a novella or… something. Time will tell, as I fly by the seat of my pants while writing, always! As the heroes of the stories above found out, sometimes you have to set aside your logic and follow your gut.
Boris and Arkady Strugatskys' novel _Inhabited Island_ (earlier translation title _Prisoners of Power_) plays with the notion of a hollow world. The inhabitants of that world believe that they're living on the inside of a hollow sphere (the result of a peculiarity of their world's atmosphere that creates the illusion of the horizon curving upward), and regard the scientific discovery of the planet's actual shape ridiculous. In fact, one of their maledictions is based upon it, and literally means "world turned inside out."
OTOH, one could also do a "hollow world" story with an inflated-asteroid habitat with some kind of artificial "sun" at its center, or with a Dyson sphere, especially one around a red dwarf, such that the diameter of the sphere is necessarily smaller.
Etidorhpa or the End of Earth, by John Uri Lloyd, and The Goddess of Atvatabar, by William R. Bradshaw are two more excellent examples I’ve read. Also, at least one Choose Your Own Adventure book had the theme.
I was always fascinated by the idea until I learned gravity wouldn’t work.