When the World Shook Book

'..think not that you Westerners have done with wars.. and what the sword spares class shall snatch from class in the struggle for supremacy and ease.'

Quite a lot of good moments in this sci-fi adventure story. Also probably one of Haggards smoothest reads. I imagine he had a few more passes on the draft than he usually does.

Most of the good elements are character driven. The plot moves slowly and is not helped by all the foreshadowing. Its pretty obvious where things are going even if you havn't read any other Haggard stories. If you have read some of his other books however then a lot of this will feel very familiar.

Given its publishing in 1919 you might expect some influence from the war but despite the storyline lending itself well to that Haggard seems to almost resent having to acknowledge the conflict. The story is also quite religious, in fact the most religious adventure story i've read since Ardistan and Djinnistan.

Its almost a perfect representation of its time period. A bit more advanced than the victorian novels but oddly old fashioned for a modern work. Although i've said its slow, the downtime for want of a better term, is not without its charm mostly due to the personalities of its characters. Theres a fair bit of humour here.