For the months of July, August, and September, our books of the month are the Lost Level trilogy by Brian Keene. The author shared an essay exploring the influences and inspirations for the series.

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Other Levels

I am often asked about the childhood influences that inspired my Lost Level series (currently comprised of the novels The Lost Level, Return To The Lost Level, Hole In The World, and the forthcoming Beneath The Lost Level, as well as assorted short stories). I am also often asked to recommend books and other media that might appeal to fan of the Lost Level series. This is a pretty easy task, since the two categories overlap with one another. But to do it correctly, we’re going to have to travel through time, you and I, so… take my hand, hold on tight, and don’t get lost. Here are my Top Five recommendations.

1. LAND OF THE LOST

Our first stop on our trip across time and space is the autumn of 1974. I’m seven years old, and the thing I look forward to most every week is Saturday morning television. You see, back then, streaming meant going outside to play in the creek. There was no Internet, and no a la carte television programming. Your favorite show aired at a very specific time, once a week, and of you missed an episode, you had to wait until summer for a chance to catch it again. And if you missed it that second time around, then you probably never got a chance to see it at all.

If you were seven years old like I was, then the best day for television was Saturday, because that day was targeted at kids. My little sister and I woke up at 5am every Saturday, got ourselves some breakfast, and then plopped down in front of the TV. We’d start off with syndicated black and white reruns of Little Rascals, Three Stooges, Laurel and Hardy, or The Lone Ranger. Then, around 7am, the real fun began. Back then, you had three television stations to choose from, and all three of them were showing cartoons at that time of day. Looney Tunes was always a staple, as were Fat Albert and Super Friends. There was also Tarzan, Shazam, Isis, Speed Buggy, Sigmund and the Sea Monsters, Space Ghost, Scooby Doo, Hong Kong Phooey, Godzilla (and Godzooky), Thundarr the Barbarian, Smurfs, and so many more graced the screen, as well. But that autumn of 1974, something new came along, and it came with a warning… BEWARE OF SLEESTAK.

Sid and Marty Krofft’s Land of the Lost was a monumental shift in children’s television programming in that the writers were all accomplished science fiction authors, including Larry Niven, Theodore Sturgeon, Ben Bova, Norman Spinrad, D.C. Fontana, Walter Koenig, and David Gerrold. Like prime time Star Trek (which Fontana, Koenig, and Gerrold had all been involved with) Land of the Lost’s episodes were often socio-political, albeit in a form that was easy for children to grasp and digest. Although I didn’t know it at the time, Land of the Lost was where I first learned about concepts like feminism, equality, colonialism, prepping, survivalism, pacifism, ecology, quantum mechanics, quantum theory, and more. Of course, I didn’t realize any of this at the time. All i cared about was the story. And what a story it was!

The Marshall family (Rick, Will, and Holly) are transported to a mysterious world populated by dinosaurs, ape-like hominids, various figures from Earth’s historical past and future, mythological beasts and deities, aliens, robots, and so much more, including the terrifying Sleestak — a devolved insectoid-reptilian race that made an ominous hissing sound that has haunted a generation of viewers.  

Sound familiar? Yeah, that’s the roots of The Lost Level right there. The die was cast when I was seven. I devoured that show weekly for three seasons, and it put me on the path I continue to walk today.

Land of the Lost spawned a 1990s remake and later on a big-budget film, but neither of these ever captured the absolute magic of the original series. All three seasons are available on DVD, and I highly recommend them no matter what your current age.  

2. PELLUCIDAR

Pellucidar was a fictional setting that featured in a number of novels by Edgar Rice Burroughs. It existed at the center of the Earth, owing to the Hollow Earth theory which was bandied about at the time (1914). Because it exists inside the Earth itself, there is no sunset inside Pellucidar. It is always daylight. Like Land of the Lost, it is a world populated by lost and extinct species — dinosaurs, mammoths, sabertooth tigers, primitive hominids, and Germans. The human civilizations that make up the world range from Stone Age to Bronze Age. There’s also an evil telepathic race of highly evolved Pterodactyl people called the Mahars.

The series originally spanned seven novels, including two crossovers with Tarzan (another favorite character of my childhood). After the author’s death, there were several other novels written by others set in that world. The series also spawned various comic book and film adaptations.

The Pellucidar stories are pure pulp — the heroes are all brave, capable white dudes and the women are all beautiful savage princesses. Those tropes are what I was raised on, but they are also tropes I’ve tried very hard to subvert and play with when it came to The Lost Level series. You’ll notice, for example, in the first novel, that it is Kasheena — the beautiful savage princess — who quite often ends up saving our protagonist Aaron Pace, rather than the other way around.

But Pellucidar wasn’t the only world hidden in the center of the Earth that had an impact on me. There was also…

3. THE WARLORD

First appearing in 1975 (one year after the debut of Land of the Lost), The Warlord was a DC Comics series by Mike Grell, featuring an Air Force pilot named Travis Morgan who is shot down over the North Pole and enters a world inside the Hollow Earth. But this world isn’t named Pellucidar. It’s named Skataris. Like Pellucidar, the Land of the Lost, and the Lost Level, Skataris is populated with prehistoric creatures and races, as well as high-tech robots, androids, and battle machines. These latter of the leftover remnants of Atlantis (a theme that pops up again in similar “lost world” stories).

Grell drew on many sources for the series, including Pellucidar and Tarzan, and his own US Air Force experiences, which lent authenticity to Travis Morgan’s background and motivations.

The series lasted 133 issues, ending in 1988. Four reboots have followed, but none have ever captured the magnificence of the original. Travis Morgan has also crossed over into other DC Comics properties, teaming up with Superman, Green Arrow, and others.

4. KA-ZAR THE SAVAGE

This was not the original run of Marvel Comics’ Tarzan clone, nor the second. This was his third time headlining a series, in the 1980s, and it echoed The Warlord in so many ways. In Marvel canon, Ka-Zar — along with his wife Shanna and his pet sabertooth Zabu — resides in a hidden place called the Savage Land, deep in a remote tropical valley nestled within Antarctica. The Savage Land is, of course, populated by the same prehistoric creatures that populate The Lost Level, The Land of the Lost, Skataris, and Pellucidar. And once again, there’s Atlantean technology laying about. But there’s also Lemurian technology, which is different, and a demon named Belasco. It’s very derivative of the stuff that had come before, but the series stands out for how writer Bruce Jones flips the script and the tropes. Ka-Zar, formerly a stereotypical pulp action type and white savior, experiences remarkable character growth and self-awareness throughout the 34-issue run. It was a neat, hidden examination of toxic masculinity, years before we even knew that was a thing. I read this series as a teenager, and it had a profound effect on me. I reread it again recently (my wife, author Mary SanGiovanni, was writing a Shanna comic for Marvel and wanted to familiarize herself with the character), and I have to say, it holds up.

5. LOST

Our final stop on this trip through time takes us to adulthood, and ABC’s Lost. Running six seasons and 121 episodes, Lost cleverly played with some of the tropes listed in the other recommendations above, but did different things with them. This time, the lost world isn’t inside a hollow Earth or Antartica, but a mysterious island that may or may not exist across all of time and space. To say more here would involve major spoilers, and Lost is a show that should be experienced without prior knowledge, if at all possible. Later seasons lean hard into quantum mechanics and quantum theory, which confused and turned off a lot of viewers, but delighted adult me as much as Land of the Lost delighted kid me. The show has what i consider to be one of the best finales in television history — a testimony and tribute to everything from the theory of Eternal Return to soulmates. Deep, emotional, moving stuff.

So, there you have it. All of these influenced The Lost Level series in one way or another. And there were others, as well — Under A Warrior Star and The Drive-In trilogy (both by Joe R. Lansdale), A Splendid Chaos by John Shirley, Edgar Rice Burroughs’ John Carter, Warlord of Mars series, and many more. But it is these five above that had the biggest impact, and if you enjoy my Lost Level series, you’ll probably dig these, too.

Brian Keene

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BRIAN KEENE writes novels, comic books, short stories, and nonfiction. He is the author of over fifty books, mostly in the horror, crime, fantasy, and non-fiction genres. They have been translated into over a dozen different languages and have won numerous awards.