Subterranean fiction is asubgenre ofspeculative fiction, which focuses on fictional underground settings, sometimes at thecenter of the Earth or otherwise deep below the surface. The genre is based on, and has in turn influenced, theHollow Earth theory.The earliest works in the genre wereEnlightenment-era philosophical or allegorical works, in which the underground setting was often largely incidental. In the late 19th century, however, morepseudoscientific orproto-science-fictional motifs gained prevalence. Common themes have included a depiction of the underground world as more primitive than the surface, either culturally, technologically or biologically, or in some combination thereof. The former cases usually see the setting used as a venue forsword-and-sorcery fiction, while the latter often featurescryptids or creatures extinct on the surface, such asdinosaurs orarchaic humans. A less frequent theme has the underground world much more technologically advanced than the surface one, typically either as therefugium of alost civilization, or (more rarely) as a secret base forspace aliens.
InLudvig Holberg's 1741 novelNicolai Klimii iter subterraneum (Niels Klim's Underground Travels), Nicolai Klim falls through a cave while spelunking and spends several years living on both a smaller globe within and the inside of the outer shell.
Giacomo Casanova's 1788Icosaméron is a 5-volume, 1,800-page story of a brother and sister who fall into the Earth and discover the subterranean utopia of the Mégamicres, a race of multicolored, hermaphroditic dwarfs.
An early science-fiction work calledSymzonia: A Voyage of Discovery by a "Captain Adam Seaborn" appeared in print in 1820. In the story, Captain Seaborn leads a group of travelers into the concave inner surface of the Earth. There, they discover an inner continent, which they name Symzonia afterJohn Cleves Symmes, Jr. The story obviously reflected the ideas of Symmes, and some have claimed Symmes as the real author. Other researchers say it deliberately satirized Symmes's ideas, and think they have identified the author as an early American author namedNathaniel Ames (see Lang, Hans-Joachim and Benjamin Lease. "The Authorship ofSymzonia: The Case for Nathanial Ames"New England Quarterly, June 1975, page 241–252).
Faddei Bulgarin's short satirical tale "Improbable Tall-Tale, or Journey to the Center of the Earth" (1825) describes three underworld countries: Ignorantia (populated by spiders), Beastland (populated by apes), and Lightonia (populated by humans, with a capital called Utopia).
Although it is often suggested thatJules Verne used the idea of a partially hollow Earth in his 1864 novelJourney to the Center of the Earth, his characters actually descend only 87 miles[1] beneath the surface, where they find an underground sea occupying a cavern roughly the size of Europe. There is no indication in the novel that Verne intended to suggest that the Earth was in any way hollow, partially or otherwise.
Alexandre Saint-Yves d'Alveydre's "Mission de l'Inde en Europe" was published in 1886 as a "true" story about Agartha. He withdrew it from the print and it was released again byGérard Encausse in 1910.
John O. Greene's utopia The Ke Whonkus People (1890) describes an 11,000 year-old subterranean civilization at the North Pole, circa 1886, with a "fine climate" and "highly civilized people."
William R. Bradshaw's science fiction novelThe Goddess of Atvatabar (1892) is a utopian fantasy set within the hollow Earth.
Will N. Harben'sLand of the Changing Sun (1894) is a utopian fantasy set within a 100-mile wide cavern found below the Atlantic Ocean 200 years prior and settled. The settlers found the atmosphere very rejuvenating, and also build an artificial changing sun to light their world. Two balloonists, an American and an Englishman, discover this world.
In the sociologistGabriel Tarde's only literary work,Underground Man (1896) (original French titleFragments d'Histoire Future), Humanity escapes a second apocalyptic ice age by delving under the earth and reforming society with Art as its central value.
Charles Willing Beale's 1899 novel,The Secret of the Earth tells of the adventure of two brothers who build an anti-gravity airship and travel to the hollow Earth. There they find several lost races, and learn that mankind originated in the hollow Earth, but the unruly types were exiled from the hollow Earth. They then exit via the South Pole opening and crash on an island in the South Pacific, from which they send off a log of their adventures which forms the novel.
InNEQUA or The Problem of the Ages a visit in a sailing ship is made to Altruria, a society inside the earth. This feminist utopian science fiction novel was published in 1900 in Topeka Kansas. Jack Adams listed as the author, was a pseudonym for A. O. Grigsby and Mary P. Lowe, both newspaper publishers.
Willis George Emerson's science-fiction novelThe Smoky God (1908) recounts the adventures of one Olaf Jansen who traveled into the interior and found an advanced civilization.
Edgar Rice Burroughs wrote adventure stories (beginning withAt the Earth's Core in 1914) set in the inner world ofPellucidar, including at one point a visit from his characterTarzan. Burroughs's Pellucidar has oceans on the outer surface corresponding to continents on the inner surface and vice versa. Pellucidar is lit by a miniaturesun suspended at the center of the hollow sphere, so it is perpetually overhead wherever one is in Pellucidar. The sole exception is the region directly under a tiny geostationarymoon of the internal sun; that region as a result is under a perpetualeclipse and is known as the Land of Awful Shadow. This moon has its own plant life and (presumably) animal life and hence either has its own atmosphere or shares that of Pellucidar.
The Russian geologistVladimir Obruchev uses the concept of the hollow Earth in his 1915 scientific novelPlutonia to take the reader through various geological epochs.[3]
The World Below by British science fiction author S. Fowler Wright was a major novel of 1929, and important in the history of science-fiction as a bridge between the scientific romance and the pulp era. It is set in the far-future in which Earth's dominant race lives almost entirely underground.
Morgo the Mighty bySean O'Larkin was serialized inThe Popular Magazine in 1930. It featured the adventures of aTarzanesque character in a network of giant caverns beneath theHimalayas. The caves are ruled by a cowled magician and populated by primitive men, giant intelligent bats, giant warring ants and giant killer chickens.
The novelThe Secret People (1935) byJohn Wyndham features prisoners held captive in a labyrinth of caves by an ancient race of pygmies dwelling beneath theSahara desert.
In theMiddle-earth books byJ.R.R. Tolkien, the kingdom ofAngband and its predecessorUtumno are deep underground, under mountains called Ered Engrin; they are home to Orcs, monsters and Morgoth the Dark Lord. Also, the Dwarves and even elves live underground – the underground realms ofMoria and Erebor and cities likeNargothrond andMenegroth play a major role in the stories.
While investigating a haunted mound in Oklahoma, the protagonist ofH. P. Lovecraft's novellaThe Mound discovers a Spanish explorer's account of his travels in a subterranean civilization named K’nyan.
Richard Sharpe Shaver'sThe Shaver Mystery stories are about ancient civilizations still living in caverns beneath the Earth surface
Into a Strange Lost World (1952), a novel for children byRichard Hough (pen name: Bruce Carter), tells the story of two airmen who are shot down in the Second World War and descend into an underground world.
The End of the Tunnel (akaThe Cave of Cornelius) (1959), byPaul Capon. Four boys in England get trapped in a cave by a landslide, and by following the cave, they encounter a forgotten civilization.
Dark Universe (1961) byDaniel F. Galouye. A post-apocalyptic science fiction novel where two clans live deep underground and are descendants from humans who escaped an old war.
City of the First Time (1975) byG.J. Barrett. British survivors of an atomic holocaust venture downward into the Earth through a series of caves and encounter two other races, survivals of previous extinctions.
Visages Immobiles (1983) byRaymond Abellio. Having discovered that New York was built on top of a massive hollow cavity, an architect devises a plan to build an underground city below Manhattan. The underground setting then becomes the scenario of the apocalyptic battle between a clairvoyant and an international terrorist.
A Hollow Earth featured in the children'sChoose Your Own Adventure novelThe Underground Kingdom (1983).
The history of the Hollow Earth theory is explored inUmberto Eco's 1988 novelFoucault's Pendulum, alongside a wide range of other pseudo-scientific and conspiracy theories.
InJeff Long's 1999 novelThe Descent and its 2007 sequelDeeper, a vast labyrinth of tunnels and passages underlying the Earth is inhabited by a brutal species of once-civilized but now degeneratehominid, Homo Hadalis.
The 2000 novelAbduction byRobin Cook includes the concept of a third world under the sea called "Interterra."
Eoin Colfer'sArtemis Fowl series (2001–2012) focuses on crimes committed by or against the fairy-folk who live beneath the Earth's crust in a technologically advanced society.
Underland (2002) byMick Farren has the vampire heroVictor Renquist traveling to a hollow Earth populated by Nazi scientists, subjugated proto-scientific lizard people, and a fungus addicted race of sub-vampires.
Tunnels (2005) is the first of a series of books byRoderick Gordon and Brian Williams, taking place in a hollow Earth with an interior sun, in which multiple civilisations exist within and beneath the crust.
Metro 2033 (2005) andMetro 2034 (2009) byDmitry Glukhovsky are post-nuclear-apocalyptic novels which describe the last remaining humans fighting to survive in the metro system underneath Moscow with the surface being too irradiated for humans to survive.
Against the Day (2006) byThomas Pynchon makes extensive mention of the Earth's interior as a place to be explored, positing inner-Earth seas. Pynchon'sMason & Dixon (1997) also uses the idea of a Hollow Earth as the planet's final holdout for magic against the calculations of the surface's most eminent men of science.
Neal Shusterman'sDownsiders (1999) is a story where a young boy living under New York City in a secret community becomes curious about the topside and adventure ensues.
John Hodgman's 2008 bookMore Information Than You Require says the hollow interior of the Earth is the home of the subterranean Molemen. In the center of this Hollow Earth is a small, red sun.
TheSilo series narrates post-apocalyptic human life in a subterranean city extending one hundred forty-four stories beneath the surface.
Kameron Hurley's 2017 novelThe Stars Are Legion takes place on an alien world with various separate underground societies that the protagonist must work her way through on a long journey back to the surface.
The comics seriesLes Terres Creuses by Belgian comics writers Luc andFrançois Schuiten features several hollow-Earth settings.
TheHellboy Universe features the Hollow Earth as a major part of its mythology. It was first introduced in the 2002miniseriesB.P.R.D.: Hollow Earth, when the team journeyed into great caverns inside the Earth where they discovered a race of people that had been artificially created by the ancient Hyperboreans.
One adventure ofAlan Moore's Pulp-style heroTom Strong involved a gateway into the Hollow Earth in the Arctic where Nazis had fled after World War Two only to be devoured by its inhabitants. Much of the story is spent discussing many of the varying Hollow Earth concepts mentioned above. (Tom Strong's Terrific Tales #1)
In the 1970s, comic-book artistMike Grell produced the comic-bookWarlord, about a pilot who finds himself inSkartaris, asword-and-sorcery world reached through an opening at the North Pole. First believed to be the hollow interior of the Earth, Skartaris was later revealed to be a parallel dimension.
The 1935 serialThe Phantom Empire combines awestern musical with subterranean plot elements loosely adapted from Bulwer-Lytton'sThe Coming Race.
The 1951 short featureSuperman and the Mole Men postulated a race of little people living inside a hollow Earth. The film was later reconfigured into a two-part TV episode calledThe Unknown People, with most or all explicit references to "Mole Men" being excised.
The 1951 filmUnknown World is the story of a small crew in a drilling vehicle exploring for a refuge from nuclear war, and finding great caverns at tremendous depths.
The 1956 filmThe Mole People has an introduction byFrank C. Baxter ("Dr. Research") explaining the history of Hollow Earth theories.
The 1960 filmThe Time Machine is based on the H.G. Wells novel and features underground-dwelling Morlocks.
The 1970 filmBeneath the Planet of the Apes is the second film in the Planet of the Apes series and features an underground city inhabited by mutated humans with psychic powers.
The 1971 filmTHX 1138 is an American science fiction film set in a dystopian future in which the populace lives underground and is controlled through android police officers and mandatory use of drugs that suppress emotion, including outlawed sexual desire.
The 1973 filmGodzilla vs. Megalon involves the Seatopians, an underground civilization that sends Megalon to destroy the surface world in response to earthquakes caused by underground nuclear testing damaging their kingdom.
The 1984 filmWhat Waits Below depicts the discovery of a lost race of albino-skinned beings.
The 1999 film "The Matrix" features the underground refuge of Zion.
The 2001 animated filmAtlantis: The Lost Empire, has the protagonists discovering the survived ancient civilization of Atlantis in the depths of the Earth.
The 2003 filmThe Core in which a team has the mission to drill to the center of the Earth in order to restart the rotation of the Earth's core.
The 2004 Japanese horror filmMarebito, directed byTakashi Shimizu, references the Hollow Earth hypothesis.
The 2005 filmThe Island is an American science fiction-thriller film directed by Michael Bay, starring Ewan McGregor and Scarlett Johansson.
The 2008 filmJourney to the Center of the Earth has the protagonists Professor Trevor Anderson, his nephew Sean Anderson, and a volcanologist's daughter ending up at the Center of the Earth after traversing a mine system. Unlike the book, the "Center of the Earth" is thousands of miles beneath the Earth's surface and is an air pocket surrounded by hot lava causing the location to easily hit 200 degrees during certain volcanic activities above it.
Hollow Earth is a major plot element of theMonsterVerse film franchise. The 2017 filmKong: Skull Island places Skull Island atop an entryway into Hollow Earth that is responsible for its population of giant monsters and plant/animal hybrids. The 2019 filmGodzilla: King of the Monsters reveals the existence of a Hollow Earth with portals that Godzilla uses as shortcuts to move faster around the globe. The 2021 filmGodzilla vs. Kong features an expedition into Hollow Earth to harness a mysterious energy source and find Kong's ancestral home. Due to a strong reverse-gravitational effect, Apex Cybernetics has developed HEAVs which are specialized crafts able to withstand the pressure exerted by the gravity field.
The main antagonists ofInhumanoids are giant monsters who originate from a subterranean world, and the protagonists regularly travel underground to battle against them.
TheSpider Riders series of books and anime take place in an "Inner World" inhabited by humans, cybernetic battle spiders, and intelligent insects.
The anime seriesGurren Lagann is initially set in an underground civilization due to the surface of the world being ruled by Lordgenome.
TheTransformers: Cybertron cartoon series features a character, Professor Lucy Suzuki, who believes in the Hollow Earth Theory.
The Japanese animeGaiking: Legend of Daiku-Maryu has the protagonists spend much of their time in a hollow Earth called Darius, home of an empire of humanoids that are currently amassing a force to invade and conquer the surface world.
The French cartoonLes Mondes Engloutis (known in English asSpartakus and the Sun Beneath the Sea) involves protagonists descending through a maze of caves into a subterranean world of different space and time, inhabited by various peoples.
Sanctuary has a Season 3 storyline that deals with Helen Magnus and her team finding and visiting Hollow Earth.
InDetentionaire, the main antagonist of the series known as "His Eminence" is from a long lost race of ancient reptilian humanoids who retreated beneath the earth and lay dormant for thousands of years.
InDoctor Who Series 5 (2010), episodes 8 and 9The Hungry Earth andCold Blood take place in an underground city populated by Silurians, a humanoid reptilian race who have been hibernating for millions of years and want to have their planet back from the "ape descended primitives" who have evolved and taken over (i.e. humankind). The Silurians and their aquatic cousins the Sea Devils also appeared in the original run ofDoctor Who - inDoctor Who and the Silurians (1970),The Sea Devils (1972) andWarriors of the Deep (1984).
The animated television seriesBilly Dilley's Super-Duper Subterranean Summer takes place in an underground world called Subterranea-Tania, which the main characters get trapped due to a science project gone awry.
The 1992 video gameUltima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss is set in a large cave system that contains the remnants of a failed utopian civilization.
The 1993 video gameMage: The Ascension, the Hollow Earth exists as an alternate reality, but virtually all ways of accessing without magic have ceased to exist in the modern age because people no longer believe the Earth could be hollow.
The 1993 video game seriesMyst, the D'ni civilization lies in a large cavern under the U.S. state ofNew Mexico.
The 2000 video game seriesAvernum, and its predecessor,Exile (1995), the nation is based in a cavern system once used as apenal colony.
The 2001 role-playing video gameKing's Field IV released in North America asKing's Field: the Ancient City takes place predominantly in the Ancient City, an underground domain in the land of Heladin which has been stricken by darkness since their king received a strange idol. The player is tasked with venturing further and further downwards exploring much of the subterranean city in its decay and desolation.
The 2001 real time strategy gamePikmin, features a large cave called the Forest Navel, while being underground there is a single hole at the top to enter. The sequel,Pikmin 2 (2004), has the main characters delving into 14 somewhat varying caverns for treasure, one of which is aptly titled "Subterranean Complex".
The 2002 video gameArx Fatalis, takes place almost entirely in an underground setting.
The 2002 video gameBreath of Fire: Dragon Quarter is set entirely in an underground world, where the main characters try to reach the surface.
The 2008 video gameSubterranean Animism, the 11th video game in theTouhou Project series, revolves around the main character descending underground into the depths of Hell in order to stop a possible apocalyptic event from occurring.
The 2008MMO video game,Aion: Tower of Eternity, the world of Atreia used to be a hollow planet with the Tower inside it, connecting the northern and southern hemispheres together, providing light and heat to the creatures living inside of the planet.
The 2009 browser-based gameFallen London, as well as its roguelike spin-offSunless Sea, are set in an alternate history in which Victorian London is now located a mile beneath the surface, in an enormous cavern colloquially referred to as the "Neath" dominated by a large subterranean ocean.
The 2009 tabletop game,Pathfinder Roleplaying Game's main setting, Golarion, features an extensive underworld known as the Darklands. The deepest region of the Darklands, known as Orv, consists of a series of caverns (referred to as Vaults) roughly the size of surface nations, home to a variety of alien environments, creatures and cultures.
The 2009 video gameDragon Age: Origins features an underground city by the name of Orzammar
The 2011 video gameThe Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim features an underground city by the name of Blackreach with large glowing mushrooms and a large "sun" hanging from the ceiling, Blackreach connects the Dwemer cities: Alftand, Mzinchaleft, and Raldbthar which are also underground and feature large amounts ofSteampunk technology.
The 2011 sandbox video gameMinecraft features remnants of forgotten civilizations hidden deep within the earth, such as the Stronghold and the Ancient City. Furthermore, there exists a dimension in the game called the Nether, largely considered to be located below the Overworld. Here, there exist derelict structures such as Bastion Remnants and Nether Fortresses, along with the Piglins, a race of sentient, humanoid pig creatures.
The 2012MMORPGThe Secret World, the Hollow Earth serves as a central hub allowing the player to travel between the different area of the outer world. In the 2017 reboot,Secret World Legends, it has been redesigned for being the central place for trade, meetup and services.
The 2013 unreleased RPGDeep Down focuses on deep diving into an ancient civilization below the earth to discover its secrets while using powerful abilities and a dynamic lighting system to survive its deep dank depths while also combating terrifying grimdark foes such as an ancient dragon like the one shown in the 2013 Tokyo Game Show Trailer.
The 2015 video gameUndertale, the main character falls into the Underground, a subterranean realm which serves as the setting for the game. The Underground is populated with a society of monsters which were banished there by humans.
The 2015 role-playing gameUnderrail is set in a distant future, where life on Earth's surface has long since been made impossible and the remnants of humanity now dwell in a vast system of metro station-states.
The 2017 Metroidvania gameHollow Knight takes place on Hallownest, a ruined kingdom built inside a vast series of interconnected caverns, presenting lakes, lush caves and forgotten cities, among other various areas.
Japanese psychedelic rock band Far East Family Band named their 1975 debut albumChikyu Kudo Setsu, (Hollow Earth Theory), although the official English title wasThe Cave Down to Earth. The album's sleeve notes refer to familiar stories of entrances at the north and south poles, and of an ancient civilisation dwelling inside the Earth with connections to UFOs.[5]
The bandBal-Sagoth has, on their albumThe Chthonic Chronicles (2006), a song about the hollow Earth called "Invocations Beyond the Outer-World Night".
InColdplay's first full albumParachutes there's a song called "Spies". It may refer to a subterranean location, but the lyrics themselves are ambiguous.
Science Babble, on their albumMembrane has a song "Rock Bottom" revolving around hollow Earth theory.
Subsurface fiction may also be set on other planetary bodies:
The most common example of a hollow body other than Earth has historically been ahollow Moon. A breathable interior atmosphere allowed various SF writers to postulate lunar life (including intelligent life) in spite of scientific observations of the uninhabitability of the Lunar surface. The subgenre largely died out following the actualMoon landings.
The console Strategy/RPG seriesSuper Robot Wars features a Hollow Earth world named La Gias.
"World Without Stars", the third volume of the French graphic space novel seriesValérian: Spatio-Temporal Agent takes place mainly inside a hollow planet inhabited by a matriarchal and a patriarchal culture continuously at war with each other.
