description: I’ve alwas been taken by books that deal with separate societies living underground. It is a popular theme in literature. Examples Lewis Carroll’s, Alice in Wonderland; Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s, The Coming Race; Orson Welles’s, The Time Machine; and Fritz Lang’s movie, “Metropolis.” I think the concept of two different societies, simultaneously occupying the same location, but on different levels opens opportunities to contrast and compare lifestyles. It also makes sense when you think about a dominant, corrupt upper civilization, driving a smaller, but superior civilization, underground like I wrote into Tunnels of Columbus. We always think of above ground, in the light, as being the realm of life, and virtue. It is Hell underground just as Dante created in The Divine Comedy; a land of darkness, where sinners go to be eternally punished. I was influenced by Bulwer-Lytton, who reversed that relationship. Both in The Coming Race, and my Tunnels of Columbus, the last remnants of civilization were underground. In The Coming Race, the upper and lower tiers are not at war; in my book, they are. I wrote Tunnels because it seems that the unwashed, teeming, masses will one day rule over this earth, making war against civilization, driving the fragments underground. There, they will develop a new religion, and advance science, but will still be hopelessly trapped until an unlikely leader appears to show them the light.
language: English
title: Tunnels of Columbus
titlecomplete: Tunnels of Columbus
publisher: Varen House Press