The intrepid Chris Roberson and his Monkeybrain Books are going to put out a second edtion of my novel The Hollow Earth in a couple of months.

I spent the last few days rereading it and re-editing the text. I edited the original from a manuscript I found, you understand, the book is really by Mason Algiers Reynolds of Virginia. I wrote a new “Editor’s Note for the Second Edition” which includes a copy I made of an 1852 drawing by Mason Reynolds that I found a few years back, thanks to a tip from my eccentric and difficult friend Frank Shook.

In viewing the sketch, understand that it depicts a cross-section of Mason’s Hollow Earth, sliced from pole to pole. The lumpy outer shapes represent the Earth’s crust, partly overlaid with seas. Mason’s Earth has Holes at both poles, and there are several additional holes passing through its seas. The creatures within the Hollow Earth are not drawn to scale.

Running clockwise from the top, features to note are:

* The maelstrom at the North Hole.

* Mason’s dog Arf beneath it.

* A black god riding a lightstreamer.

* A gap where an ocean runs through Earth’s crust, with a tiny “fried-egg ship” floating up through it—this corresponds to the hole near Chesapeake Bay.

* A ballula or giant shellsquid.

* A second ocean gap, in the vicinity of the Bermuda triangle.

* A flowerperson (Seela?) on a giant flower.

* A harpy bird above the inner jungle.

* The South Hole.

* A second lightstreamer.

* Another “blue hole” gap within the sea which is meant to lie, I believe, near Tonga and Fiji.

* A pair of koladull or shrigs.

* A third lightstreamer, which leads in towards the center where it meets the fan of a woomo or giant sea cucumber.

The center also depicts six Umpteen Seas, another woomo, and the sphere of the Central Anomaly, with MirrorSeas visible within.