Re: (ReacTor) Five SFF Novels Featuring Tunnels

On 4/30/25 4:44 PM, Garrett Wollman wrote:

In article <vutal4$2u6$1@panix2.panix.com>,
James Nicoll <jdnicoll@panix.com> wrote:

Five SFF Novels Featuring Tunnels
>
Name a better place to hide from and/or look for trouble!
>
https://reactormag.com/five-sff-novels-featuring-tunnels/

 Two examples from introductions to books:
 1) In Julian May's THE MANY-COLORED LAND, in the opening part ("The
Leavetaking") set in 2112 Earth, exile-to-be Stein Oleson works on a
crew that maintains the underground power transmission tunnels and
repairs them after seismic events, between Lisbon and Cabo Verde.  (We
learn that the energy is beamed down from solar power satellites; the
satellites are presumably geosynchronous so you need the transmission
network to get the sunlight to the other side of the terminator.  This
was actually a thing people were seriously talking about as a solution
to the 1970s energy crisis, although nobody had the slightest idea how
to do it.
 2) In the opening of Heinlein's FRIDAY, the title character takes a
"semi-ballistic" craft (undergroun magnetically-accelerated passenger
capsule in an evacuated tunnel on a ballistic trajectory) to
Christchurch, N.Z.  As I recall this was a common trope for both
Heinlein and many other Golden Age authors.
 

Aha - your mention of Heinlein reminds me of the tunnels in The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress.
Tony