So begins an extraordinary adventure in which the three wander the Earth like Virgil's Aeneas, Ari and Zest seeking re-entry to their own world. The Hollow Earthers are shocked at the cruelty and lies of the surface world, the dieback spreading through the forests. Yet they are seduced by the world's temptations.
Kinsella's parable draws on a rich tradition of Hollow Earth literature and science fiction including Bradshaw's The Goddess of Atvabar (1892).With strange beauty, its alluring trajectory vividly captures our 21st century world in crisis. Like Manfred we are often blindly complicit in the earth's downfall.
‘Happiness is under our feet.’ sings the narrator in this passionate, layered and compelling new novel.
‘Combining a twenty-first century sense of planetary peril with a 1970s funkadelic vibe, Hollow Earth reaches to the extremes of our collective breath, its alpha and omega...this is a novel of exacting self-scrutiny which also manages to be outrageous fun’ — Nicholas Birns