Alternative past.
"In the year 1836, Mason Algiers Reynolds leaves his daddy's Virginia farm to seek his fortune. But misfortune brands him a murderer, and forces him to seek sanctuary with his literary hero, Edgar Allan Poe, who soon has young Mason roped into an extraordinary balloon journey... and plummeting down to the unexplored center of the hollow Earth -- crossing the gateway into a remarkable parallel world of strange wormlike creatures and unusual civilizations on an adventure more bizarre than anyone, even Poe, could possibly imagine." [jacket blurb, US pbk, 1992]
"Jam-packed with Rucker's dada-gaga, aurora-borealism, and gargantuan playfulness. Rucker is one of my all-time favorite writers." --Philip José Farmer.
"It's no wonder Philip José Farmer enjoyed this book. Rucker displays great skill in turning a fantastical situation into a plausible reality. A great big heaping mixture of humor, imagination, politics, poetry, history and physics.
"And the Editor's Note at the end of the book is a real gem." --Henry W.Targowski (in Mark/Space, 1995).
Enjoyable.
Recommended.
