The Greatest Adventure - (Mit Press / Radium Age) by John Taine (Paperback)

About the Book

"An expedition sent to Antarctica discovers remnants of an ancient culture: an elder race with advanced technology that was lost when it was overwhelmed by the Ice Age"--

Book Synopsis

A scientifically-precipitated, out-of-control tale of evolution set in Antarctica--it predates Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness--by a mathematician of note who also wrote science fiction.

In The Greatest Adventure, an expedition to Antarctica discovers remnants of an elder race with advanced technology. These ancients had discovered the secret of developing new life-forms . . . but when the mutations threatened to run amok, their creators entombed their entire civilization in ice. Intrepid aviatrix Edith Lane and her comrades must flee through caverns inhabited by the mutated monsters, and when frozen spores begin to thaw out, the planet is threatened by malign plant life. The Greatest Adventure is a tale of horror by John Taine--the pseudonym of mathematician Eric Temple Bell--that is not without moments of humor.

Review Quotes

"What makes the Radium Age series so valuable is how it illuminates the origins of science fiction tropes we take for granted. The Greatest Adventure reveals the literary DNA of Lovecraft's cosmic horror."
--Boing Boing

About the Author

S. L. Huang is a Hugo-winning, bestselling author who justifies an MIT degree by using it to write eccentric mathematical superhero fiction. Huang is the author of the Cas Russell novels from Tor Books, including Zero Sum Game, Null Set, and Critical Point, as well as the new fantasies Burning Roses and The Water Outlaws.

Eric Temple Bell (1883-1960) was a mathematician who taught at the California Institute of Technology. The eponym of Bell polynomials and Bell numbers of combinatorics, his 1937 book Men of Mathematics would help to inspire Julia Robinson, John Forbes Nash, Jr., Andrew Wiles, and other future mathematicians. Writing as "John Taine," he published many proto-sf novels.