Books with author Will N. Harben

Armchair fiction presents extra-large paperback editions of the best in classic science fiction novels. Will N. Harben’s “The Land of the Changing Sun” is the tenth installment of our "Lost World-Lost Race Classics" series, and it’s a hollow Earth Science Fiction Classic. When a pair of air balloonists end up stranded on a lonely island in the Atlantic, they soon find themselves rescued by the crew of an incredible underwater vessel. They are then taken on a fantastic journey to a lost world deep within the bowels of the Earth. Here they encounter a strange race of humans—a race that is superior, both mentally and physically, to the humans of the surface world. It is a futuristic civilization of advanced science and unheard of technology, living under the rays of a mechanical sun that, amazingly, changes color with every passing hour. But after a brief taste of this newfound utopia, our surface adventurers find themselves imprisoned by their hosts, with seemingly little chance of ever returning to the surface world again….

THE young man stood in the field road giving directions to a robust negro who was ploughing the corn, which, in parallel rows, stretched on to the main road a quarter of a mile distant. The negro placed the point of his ploughshare a few inches from the first stalk of corn, wound the line around his wrist, and clucked to his horse. With a jangling jerk of the trace-chains the animal lunged ahead: the polished ploughshare cut into the mellow soil and sped onward, curling the gray earth like shavings, and uprooting and burying the tenacious crab-grass and succulent purslane.It was a beautiful day. The sun was shining brightly, but the atmosphere had dropped a dim veil over the near-by mountain. Even the two-storied farm-house, with its veranda and white columns, to which the field road led up a gradual slope, showed only its outlines. However, Alan Bishop, as he steadied his gaze upon the house, saw the figure of an elderly woman come out of the gate and with a quick step hurry down to him. It was his mother; she was tall and angular, and had high cheek-bones and small blue eyes. She had rather thin gray hair, which was wound into a knot behind her head, and over it she wore only a small red breakfast shawl which she held in place by one of her long hands."Alan," she said, panting from her brisk walk, "I want you to come to the house right off. Mr. Trabue has come to see yore pa again an' I can't do a thing with 'im."

William Nathaniel Harben was one of the most popular American authors of the early 20th century. He specialized in stories about the people of the mountains of Northern Georgia. Harben's greatest literary success came with Northern Georgia Sketches, a collection of short stories about Georgia "hillbillies". Two of his most memorable characters were mountaineers Abner Daniel and Pole Baker, rustic philosophers and comedic characters. (Wiki)

Though he made his literary mark writing dramatic novels focusing on the plight of working-class families, author William N. Harben also managed to influence the genre of science fiction when he produced this early dystopian classic, The Land of the Changing Sun. When a crew of explorers stumble across a lost civilization, they initially believe that they may have discovered the secret to many of humanity's problems. Over time, however, it is revealed that this mysterious community is not all that it first appeared to be.