4.5
I seriously enjoyed the crap out of this. Delightfully camp before we knew the word, and probably one of the most influential works of genre fiction out there. This basically set the template for King Kong, Pellucider, Jurassic Park, and the list goes on. The characters were so damn fun and complemented each other perfectly (especially Challenger). The drawbacks are the ones you'd expect from a century+ old adventure novel, meaning racist as hell. Racial hierarchies are explained and justified repeatedly so you DEFINITELY need to know what you're getting into and if you're not able to separate that out you're absolutely justified in avoiding this. If you can though, this is an absolutely delightful adventure story I should've read at a much younger age.