The Moon Pool

Imagine exploring super old ruins on a sunny island in the ocean, where you and your tough pilot friend Larry find a glowing blue door that sucks you into a giant underground city full of friendly frog-people and a beautiful but mean queen named Yolara. The queen has a scary, shiny monster called the Dweller that looks pretty but eats everyone, so you team up with a nice priestess Lakla to fight the bad guys, use magic rocks, and try to beat the monster before it takes over the whole world above ground. In the end, bravery and love help you escape back home, but you'll never forget the wild adventure!

In A. Merritt's 1918 science-fantasy novel 'The Moon Pool,' Dr. Walter T. Goodwin, a botanist, and Larry O'Keefe, an American aviator, investigate eerie blue lights emanating from the ancient Nan-Matal ruins on Ponape Island in the Pacific. Accompanied by the grief-stricken Norwegian sailor Olaf Svensen, they are drawn through a shimmering portal into a colossal subterranean world, home to the remnants of the lost civilizations of Mu and Atlantis. This hidden realm is divided between the benevolent Naacals, led by the priestess Lakla and guarded by the frog-like Akka, and the malevolent Ladala, ruled by the seductive witch-queen Yolara and her consort Lugur, who worship the Dweller—a hypnotic, tentacled entity spawned from the titular Moon Pool that lures victims with illusions of unearthly beauty before devouring them. As the intruders navigate political intrigue, monstrous threats, and tests of loyalty, O'Keefe becomes ensnared by Yolara's charms while Goodwin and Olaf ally with Lakla to thwart a conquest of the surface world. The narrative culminates in a desperate assault on the City of Cheronis, confrontations with the Dweller's siren power, and revelations about immortality's curse and the fragility of human will against cosmic allure. Through vivid descriptions of crystalline technologies and psychedelic horrors, Merritt weaves a tale of heroism, sacrifice, and the perilous intersection of ancient magic and emergent science, forever altering the protagonists' perceptions of reality.