The Lost Traveller (Magill’s Guide to Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature)
At a glance:
- Author: Ruthven Todd
- First Published: 1943
- Type of Work: Novel
- Type of Plot: Fantasy—magical world
- Time of Work: Contemporary
- Setting: Various locations in a nightmarish world
- Genres: Long fiction, Fantasy
- Subjects: Magic or magicians, Other worlds, Birds, Deserts, Metamorphosis or transmogrification
- Locales: Dreamscape
The Plot
Ruthven Todd’s novel The Lost Traveller is best summarized as a series of vivid scenes linked by a thin plot thread. A young Englishman, Christopher Aukland, is knocked unconscious in wartime London by a bomb blast. He wakes up in a strange desert, shaded by ancient ruins and surrounded by lizards, snakes, and scorpions.
The desert he travels through is abnormal at best and nightmarish at worst. Christopher’s perceptions of time and space are warped: The more he walks, the farther away are objects in the distance; the sun is perpetually overhead, yet...
[The entire page is 990 words long]
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