Sannikov Land
In his native country Obruchev is best known as the author of two perennially popular science fiction novels, "Plutonia" ("Плутония", 1915) and "Sannikov Land" ("Земля Санникова", 1924). Both of these stories, imitating the pattern of Arthur Conan Doyle's "The Lost World", depict in vivid detail the discovery of an isolated world of prehistoric animals in hitherto unexplored large islands north of Alaska or Siberia. In "Plutonia", dinosaurs and other Jurassic species are found in a fictional underground area north of Alaska. The descriptive passages are made more credible by Obruchev's extensive knowledge of paleontology. "Sannikov Land" is named for a phantom island of the Arctic Ocean, reported historically by Yakov Sannikov in 1811. Paul J. McAuley praised the novel in a 1999 column, saying "It's true that the characters are indistinguishably wooden mouthpieces for the author's opinions, and the plot is pure pulp, but all this is redeemed by the novel's rigorous scientific sensibility."