THE LAND OF THE CHANGING SUN (1894) ANCIENT SCIENCE FICTION

THE LAND OF THE CHANGING SUN (1894) – By William N. Harben, a former American literary giant who has since been forgotten.

A pair of balloonists – Johnston, an American, and Thorndyke from England – develop a leak in their hot air balloon while flying over the Arctic region.

Spotting a small island, our heroes land on it and build a fire in the slight hope that the smoke may attract any ships in the area. Instead, they are rescued by a futuristic, part-rubber submarine which surfaces by the Arctic island.

Rather than being rescued, Johnston and Thorndyke are treated as prisoners and given a chemical drink to make them immune to the bends as the sub dives down to the ocean floor. Eventually the vessel surfaces inside an enormous – as in NATION-sized – cavern.

Our main characters are told that they are in the subterranean kingdom called Alpha. Two hundred years earlier, English explorers discovered an abundance of precious metals there. The pioneers gave the vast cavern its name and decided to keep it a secret from the outside world, recruiting Alpha’s inhabitants from people they considered the best that humanity has to offer.

Using the real and fictional metals of the cavern nation, Alpha’s science and technology advanced at a much faster rate than the rest of the world. Inventions like high-tech submarines and flying machines aided their covert object of finding and secretly bringing “the best people” to live in Alpha.

To make up for the lack of a sun, the Alphians long ago created an artificial one composed of what we would today call light bulbs. This artificial sun slowly travels across the sky on tracks during Alpha’s equivalent of daytime and goes underground to signal the arrival of night. The sun changes color every hour.

Even though Alpha is incredibly advanced scientifically, its people are harsh and uncompromising. Everyone is under constant surveillance and individuality is punished. Citizens who become unhealthy are exiled, flown to deeper, narrower caverns far beyond the vast cavern that constitutes Alpha. They are left there to starve. (Sheesh! It would be more merciful to just kill them.)

Because Johnston and Thorndyke were not pre-screened and recruited for life in Alpha they must undergo assorted high-tech examinations before they will be accepted. Johnston fails the physical exam and, despite Thorndyke’s objections, is flown off and abandoned in the lower regions.

The Englishman, however, is deemed worthy of life in Alpha and settles in as a citizen, all the while hoping to find a way of rescuing his friend Johnston. The Alphian Princess Bernardino starts a romance with the Brit.

Bernardino is far more kindhearted than the rest of the Alphians and she agrees to help Thorndyke in a plan to steal an aircraft to find Johnston before he dies.

Rescue plans are put on hold when Bernardino’s scientist-king father has his daughter’s beau subjected to “reeducation” treatments to make him conform to Alpha’s ways. 

Meanwhile, the American has fallen in with a giant humanoid named Branasko, a political exile of the cold, callous Alpha nation. Branasko shows Johnston how to find food and drink and the pair explore the lower regions, hoping to find an escape route.

Soon, they discover that the sea wall is eroding and before long the ocean waters will burst in and have an explosive reaction with some highly unstable magma nearby. The result will mean the destruction of Alpha.

Johnston and Branasko (NOT a law firm) know their duty lies in warning the population of Alpha about the impending catastrophe. The pair bravely mount the artificial sun that “night” when it descends near their area and ride it back up to the sky over Alpha the next morning.

Believe it nor not, the Alphians do believe the American and the giant and realize they must evacuate. The nation’s incredible wealth in precious metals will be divided among all the people, then Alpha’s submarine navy will transport everyone to whatever part of the Earth they wish to live in.

The people of Alpha feel they have “tampered in God’s domain” as it were and resolve to change their ways. We readers don’t get any depiction of the outside world’s reaction to thousands of refugees with futuristic technology, unfortunately.

The Land of the Changing Sun has its moments, but there are plenty of other “ancient” sci-fi stories about hidden realms that I’ve reviewed much more positively here at Balladeer’s Blog. On the other hand, the dystopian elements are a breath of fresh air. If particular aspects of this book appeal to you, it’s worth one read, but it’s far from a classic. 

FOR WASHINGTON IRVING’S 1809 depiction of an invasion from the moon click here:   https://glitternight.com/2014/05/05/ancient-science-fiction-the-men-of-the-moon-1809-by-washington-irving/

FOR TEN MORE EXAMPLES OF ANCIENT SCIENCE FICTION CLICK HERE:   https://glitternight.com/2014/03/03/ten-neglected-examples-of-ancient-science-fiction/