RaveNational GeographicIt’s a travelogue, one that drives into the most crepuscular corners of human existence—a big, brave book that asks the vital question of our time: are we being good ancestors for our descendants here on Earth? ... A host of...experts, including geologists and glaciologists, are roped in, yet the book avoids indulging in too much beard-stroking ... Underland can get abstract while losing itself in the dark in search of an almost Zen-like divinity. It’s beautiful nonetheless ... Macfarlane’s writing is perhaps most sure-footed above ground, however, in his familiar mountain terrain ... Underland speaks to our era’s solastalgia—our existential distress at what we’re doing to our planet. Is it a retreat underground away from the horrors of the natural world changing irreversibly around us? Yes. But it simultaneously looks at them square on, too. And it can be utterly joyful.
