Entry 41: The Hollow Earth

Indy Timeline: 1934

The Hollow Earth begins with perhaps the most thrilling opening sequence of any of the Indy novels:  Trapped in a tunnel somewhere in the frigid Arctic, Indy and his companions are seriously wounded, lost, and have their backs against the wall.  As the footfalls of Nazi troops grow nearer, Indiana Jones, weakened from his injuries, struggles to keep his hand steady as he raises his Webley and prepares for one last stand.  

With this teaser, the book then flashes back and tells the story of how Indy ended up in such a predicament.  The first third of the book does a great job of setting up the adventure- an old and dying Arctic explorer tumbles into Indy’s apartment on a snowy night, conveying a long held secret regarding his past polar adventures before passing away.  Indy sets off to learn more, but is being pursued every step of the way by Nazis trying to unlock the secret mystical powers of the high north.  This is all a great premise for serial-style adventure schlock.  

McCoy does an excellent job of depicting the Nazi villains as ruthless and vile.  These guys are scary- one is a sadist with a knife, another uses waterboarding to torture Indy, and at another point, they bury Indy alive!  This is horribly dark and violent stuff.

After a series of these encounters, the story shifts abruptly for the 2^nd third of the book. There is a mini-adventure in the American southwest involving a mad man who beheads his victims.  The most striking parts of this section, besides some spelunking mishaps, is the fact that there is a sequence that is nearly identical to Kingdom of the Crystal Skull in which Indy uncovers a vault filled with treasures including gold ingots from Spanish conquistadors.  The fact that this section is linked to Indy’s quest to “return the crystal skull to its original resting place” seems like too much of a coincidence to be unrelated to the plotline for Indy 4.  Somewhere along the way, an Indy IV scriptwriter (or someone involved in the process) lifted this for the movie.  

This passage of the book culminates with a seemingly random encounter with Renee Belloq, best known as Indy's foil in Raiders.  He is portrayed as flamboyant and deceitful- at one point dressed as a pirate swinging from a Mardi gras float in New Orleans before cheating Indy in a duel to the death.  I found the inclusion of Belloq in this story to be a bit strange and his tone to be a bit “over the top”- almost a cartoon version of the Raiders villain.  Like a number of aspects of this book, his inclusion seemed tacked on and unnecessary to the story overall.  

Nevertheless, this sequence sets up the final third of the book, which involves Indy's journey to the Arctic, serving as "Commander" of an operation aboard a military plane.  This automatically brought back traumatic memories of Sky Pirates.  Suddenly, a whole slew of new characters is introduced and Indy is barking orders to them.  Additionally, they nickname the plane the "Penguin" because of its polar mission.  THERE ARE NO PENGUINS IN THE ARCTIC- ONLY IN THE ANTARCTIC.  While I will concede that the dog fighting/action sequences abroad the Penguin are vastly superior to those in Skypirates, the fact that it reminded me of that horrible book at all is a bad thing.  

Without going into too much detail, I can write that the final "act" resolves the longstanding "crystal skull" adventure and the Alecia saga that has spanned McCoy's first three books.  While there is some exciting action here, I found the end to be  complete copout (deus ex machina)- something that happens all too often in these Indy novels - see The Seven Veils and the similarly themed Interior World.  Also, what's the deal with there being two different Indy novels about him traveling to the center of the earth?  Are there that few ideas out there?  Once we get past the Ark and Holy Grail, the only other ideas are Crystal skulls (three books and one movie) and journeys to the center of the earth (two books so far)?

I was also annoyed by Indy's continued celibacy- another theme in these McCoy books.  It seems completely at odds with the dashing rogue portrayed in the first three films.  At once point, Indy meekly tells a potential love interest that he is "scared of physical intimacy" after backing away from a sexual encounter with her.  McCoy attempts to explain this away with a plot gimmick, but frankly, it doesn't work for me.  

Overall, the Hollow Earth is a violent adventure that jumps around a lot.  There are a number of characters and plotlines that are introduced and seem important at the time, but are later abandoned.  I was looking forward to reading more about the eccentric 1920s flapper niece of the Arctic explorer, but she is out of the story almost as soon as she enters it.  Her wealthy lover is set up as a potential rival for Indy, but is only in one scene.  To me, this book felt like two (or maybe three) different books stitched together into one.  It wasn't "bad," but far from McCoy's tightest writing.  This one could have been great, but ended up just "OK."

Indy Rating: 6.5/10