Jasper Fforde’s articles
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Articles written by guest writer Jasper Fforde:
There was still no news last night of the British-led expedition lost in Southern Venezuela for over a month, and fears for their safety are growing. The expedition, led by twenty-eight year old Scottish explorer Sally Challenger, departed Santa Elena in an eight-seater Otter amphibious aircraft to fly into the Gran Sabana, and only two radio messages have been heard since. The first to say that they were all well and everything was ‘more or less’ to plan, and the second transmission, a week later, which experts are still puzzling over.
Sally Challenger has become one the most accomplished explorers of modern times. She has successfully reached both poles, climbed five of the world’s highest peaks, as well as uncovering archaeological discoveries from Leptis Magna in Libya to a previously undiscovered Mayan city in the jungles of Guatemala. Of much interest to the media is her impressive lineage; she is the great-great grand daughter of Professor Challenger, whose adventures regarding ‘The Lost World’ in the same region almost a century before were eventually published as fiction ‘to discourage return visits’.
The nature of Sally’s 2004 expedition is still a closely guarded secret, but is thought to be a direct consequence of unpublished journals being discovered in a secret room of the Professor’s old house in Edinburgh during renovation work in 2002. Although the contents of the room and the journals have been kept firmly under wraps, it is believed that they relate to a journey made by Professor Challenger in the Gran Sabana area during 1896-1897, and contain instructions, maps, and several ‘artefacts’.
Because Ms Challenger’s expedition has been planned under a cloak of secrecy, there has been much speculation as to the purpose of the visit. Some say that the expedition relates to a ‘fire in the sky’ seen over the region in 1892, and others have speculated that the Journals reveal the location of a legendary ‘Black Crystal’ which is reputed to have healing powers. Reporters have also noted that American Financier and adventurer Howard F. Monroe of Florida, a man not usually open to speculative investment, has bankrolled the trip to the tune of seventeen million dollars on the condition that he was part of the expedition.
Also on the trip is the noted Belgian scientist Professor Catherine Remi, who despite being over seventy, is an integral part of Sally’s team. From the University of Venezuela is internationally renowned archaeologist Dr Marisa Ottero, who is herself no stranger to the Amazon. Also known to be on the trip are Captain Miles Carstairs of the British Army, and Major Ramón Pedilla, ex-Venezuelan air force, pilot of the Otter aircraft and ex-boyfriend of Sally Challenger.
But Ms Challenger may not be alone in the region for long. A group headed by Grazp Pharmaceuticals, Inc. has also recently entered the region in four-wheel drives, and although the two trips are supposedly unrelated, the Grazp expedition is led by Angus McFaddyen, one of Ms Challenger’s harshest critics, and reports indicate that McFaddyen may have also seen the contents of the Journals.
The area in which the expedition has been lost is the Gran Sabana, a vast region of two-billion year old table-top plateaux known as Tepuis which rise to a height of three thousand meters above the plain. Despite the introduction of new cartographic techniques, the Gran Sabana remains largely unmapped and unexplored, the mysterious plateaux often swathed in cloud, and subject to torrential down-bursts and electrical storms.
…The world’s press has gathered in London as the Expedition Journal of Sally Challenger’s excursion to South America two years ago is finally to be revealed. Subject to some of the most intense media speculation ever, the reading of the battered hand-written Journal will be undertaken in the Central Criminal Court, as it is considered key evidence.
Written at various times by all members of the Expedition, the Journal reveals not only the dangerous journey into the Interior of Southern Venezuela, but also what the expedition found there, and the ensuing aftermath. A source who has read the Journal but does not wish to be identified described it as: ‘Fantastic stuff. A tale of ancient legend, modern greed and good old-fashioned adventure.’
The world holds its breath and awaits … The Lost Book
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The Lost Book is an animated web series where you wrote the plot.
