Professor Challenger
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Professor Challenger
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The greatest professor of them all appears in many stories by Arthur Conan Doyle, but, rather more notably, appears in our own Professor Challenger in Space, as well as making a cameo in Quiet, the Tin Can Brains Are Hunting! Professor George Edward Challenger roars into any room he enters, immediately dominating it as if the very air you breath was designed with him in mind. Oh foolish deity, that created a world with any thought of placing such a man upon it! To see him is to be at odds with him and to hear him is to be insulted by him in the most colourful manner. He has often been described as a cave-man in a lounge suit, and that rings true in more than one way. Without doubt the Neanderthal is not a distant cousin of the Professor, and then also, as well as resembling the men who once lived in the cave, he is not at all dissimilar to the cave itself. His is a yawning cavern of a personality, a crack in the face of the mountain that is the world, an abysmal threat to the sanity of the rational modern man as he stares right back into your rational modern eyes and demands the attention of your most irrational ancient fears. ‘I am here!’ he cries, finding echo in the darkest realms of your soul. ‘I am here! Deny me if you can!’ He is the bear-cave, the warm cave, the cave that you always needed and were always afraid of! He was always the staunchest of companions, and finally I found him to be the warmest of friends, yet even I should be dismayed to find that maelstrom of activity and restless intellect unchained. To put it another way, Professor Challenger was an ambush of a man. Make of that what you please. |
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The
illustration depicts Professor Challenger in space.