Lost Horizon in The Evolution of Science Fiction

From the Bookshelf of The Evolution of Science Fiction…

Lost Horizon

James Hilton

Start date: November 1, 2018

Finish date: November 30, 2018

Discussion: Group Reads 2019

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Group Reads 2019

* December 2019 Group Read 1/2 Alas, Babylon
By Cheryl · 47 posts · 28 views

last updated Dec 31, 2019 01:26PM

* December 2019 Group Read 2/2 1984
By Cheryl · 89 posts · 35 views

last updated Dec 23, 2019 08:50AM

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What Members Thought

Feb 06, 2025 Wanda Pedersen rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: sff-bingo-books-2025, 2025-dws-books, brit-lit, used-books, read-in-2025, 2025-reading-list, reading-the-hoard-2025

I'm reasonably sure that I first read this book at age 13 because my best friend was reading it, so basically a buddy read. I've been meaning to reread it for some time and now, 50 years later, I managed to find a few friends to buddy read with me again. I'm quite convinced that I didn't really understand it as a teen, although I couldn't recall any details.

I found myself comparing Lost Horizon with H. Rider Haggard's She. Both involve Englishmen who stumble into lost civilizations. Of course n ...more

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Oct 26, 2018 Oleksandr Zholud rated it liked it

This is a novel (originally published in 1933), maybe one of the latest books, which still assumed 鈥榖lanks鈥� on the world map. Earlier examples are many, from Gulliver's Travels to The Lost World to The Shipwreck Island. It is a mix of SF and adventure, in tradition of Jules Verne.

There is a book in the book approach. A revolution in an oriental country led to a botched evacuation of three British and an American, who ended-up in Shangri-La. A meeting with another culture, which assumes that tran ...more

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Dec 09, 2023 Joe Santoro rated it really liked it

Shelves: historical_fiction

This is definitely not my usual read (I don't even really have a category for it here on good reads), but I picked up at a book sale a bit back for nostalgia.. this was the first book I was required to read in school I actually liked.

At this risk of sounding like an old curmudgeon, back in the day in middle school and high school we had to read such weighty tomes as Grapes of Wrath, Les Miserables, Tale of Two Cities, and Moby Dick. 'Classics'. It's no wonder I never really read much for fun unt ...more

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Sep 09, 2009 Josh rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: lost-world-pulp

this book feels a little dated in its exoticism of china & tibet. but i found that easier to gulp down given its larger ambitions. (of course, i'd just finished reading the original Conan pulp, in all of its racist, misogynist, colonialist mentality - Lost Horizon was pretty easy on me by comparison).

Lost Horizon was written between the shadows of World War I and II, and the main narrator is struggling to deal with 'western civilization's failings. plus, he finds his spiritual direction from the ...more

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