When three adventurers, Bastin, Bickley, and Arbuthnot, are marooned on a South Sea island, they discover an ancient crystal sepulcher. Inside are two Atlanteans who have been in a state of suspended animation for 250,000 years. One of the awakened sleepers, Lord Oro, is the last of the Sons of Wisdom, a superior race who'd relied on their advanced technology to subjugate the planet's lesser peoples. The other Atlantean is Oro's daughter, Yva, heiress to the title of Queen of the Earth. Unimpressed with the state of the world in the early twentieth century, Oro sets out to do what he's apparently done once before: use a colossal gyroscope to drown the planet and restart the course of human history.
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“If this is pulp fiction, it’s high pulp: a Wagnerian opera of an
adventure tale, a B-movie humanist apocalypse and chivalric romance. When
the World Shook has it all—English gentlemen of leisure, devastating
shipwrecks, volcanic tropical islands inhabited by cannibals, ancient
princesses risen from the grave, and if that weren’t enough a friendly, ongoing
debate between a godless materialist and a devout Christian. H. Rider Haggard’s
rich universe is both profoundly camp and deeply idealistic.”
—
Lydia Millet, Pulitzer Prize finalist