If you loved Professor Lidenbrock dragging Axel down Snæfellsjökull after decoding Arne Saknussemm's parchment, you'll savor the single-minded drive of Professor Challenger leading a perilous trek to a hidden plateau. Like the subterranean ocean and its prehistoric denizens in Journey to the Center of the Earth, the plateau teems with living dinosaurs, and the team must navigate treacherous terrain, hostile rivals, and the constant pressure of a mission that allows no turning back.

You were dazzled by the subterranean sea, the towering mushroom forests, and that eerie reptilian clash glimpsed from the raft in Journey to the Center of the Earth. Clarke gives you that same goosebumps-inducing wonder as explorers enter the colossal starship Rama and discover an entire curved, cylindrical landscape inside—sky, "seas," and cities without inhabitants. As with Axel and Hans probing unknown caverns, the crew here maps mysteries step by step, reveling in the sublime scale and secrets of an engineered world.

If Axel’s near-dehydration, the desperate hunt for water in volcanic strata, and the raft storm across the underground sea kept you turning pages in Journey to the Center of the Earth, you'll relish Mark Watney’s relentless problem-solving against Mars itself. Like Hans’s calm, practical fixes, Watney’s clever hacks and rationing transform every setback into a nail-biting puzzle, capturing that same upbeat, can-do spirit amid lethal terrain.

If the gruff brilliance of Professor Lidenbrock pushing a skeptical Axel down into the Earth’s depths hooked you in Journey to the Center of the Earth, you'll connect with Ogion and Ged’s mentorship. Ogion’s restrained guidance and Ged’s impulsive mistakes echo Axel’s growth under Lidenbrock’s stern tutelage—a bond forged by danger, missteps, and hard-won insight as the student learns to master himself as much as the world around him.

You thrilled to Verne’s caverns, the underground sea, and that dramatic eruption escape via Stromboli in Journey to the Center of the Earth. Burroughs plunges even deeper into Pellucidar—a sunlit realm inside the Earth with primeval beasts, perilous jungles, and human cultures shaped by this inverted world. It takes the spectacle you loved—from ichthyosaurs and plesiosaurs to vast geologic vistas—and turns it into a full-fledged, pulpy adventure across a meticulously imagined subterranean land.