hang in until you get past the first 100 pages or so ... about the time they find the "entrance" ... then don't plan on putting it down until you finish ( )

I loved this book. If not for the persistent casual racism (that thankfully mostly ceased after the first third, once the characters had left towns and civilisation for the desert and the mountains), it would have earned five stars.

That kind of talk, that was prevalent for those first few chapters, cannot go unchallenged, though.

What I long for is an adventure story told from the point of view of main characters of colour -- what of the African adventurers themselves who surely have histories and mythologies to share of their own culture? Of the Sherpas who tirelessly climb the slopes of Everest while the white people who pay them to carry all the gear garner the glory? Of the ancient southern, eastern, middle eastern and near eastern civilisations who built all of the magnificence characters like Quatermain, Umbopa, Curtis and Good seek? Those are surely magnificent, dramatic and exciting stories that deserve to be read as widely as those written by colonialists two centuries ago. ( )

A scary, swashbuckling story I may have liked, but so many years after, I'm not sure. ( )

Classic adventure story although the Victorian attitude towards the native 'savages' of Africa was a bit much in a few places. A word of warning to the squeamish, there are some pretty grisly parts although not too graphic by today's standards.

Some significant differences from the Stewart Granger movie - most notably the fact that, instead of a wife searching for her lost husband, it is a brother which eliminates all the romantic aspects. I found Alan Quatermain a more interesting character as a widower & self-confessed coward than Granger's he-man (although I adore Stewart Granger). Overall, a better story than you might expect. ( )

I enjoyed the movie starring Stewart Granger and Deborah Kerr, but the book lacked the romance of the film. Three Victorian gentlemen
search for diamonds with the help of local tribesmen whom they treat shabbily for the most part. ( )