LIFE IN A THOUSAND WORLDS (1905) – ANCIENT SCIENCE FICTION

LIFE IN A THOUSAND WORLDS (1905) – Written by William Shuler Harris. This is yet another work of “ancient” science fiction that deals with life on other planets. Each celestial body that is visited gets its own chapter.

THE MOON – The inhabitants of the moon are roughly one-fourth the size of Earthlings. Long ago the moon was a much more hospitable place to live, but volcanoes and moonquakes devastated the satellite. The remaining atmosphere is very thin, and those who are still alive must live by eating solid air. 

       Lunar technology is behind that of Earth but the moon people are gifted at the creative arts.

MARS – Called Marsites and Marsmen in this book, the people of the Red Planet are roughly twelve feet tall and their long humanoid bodies have four arms. The ruling class on Mars treats the lower classes horribly, using them as slave labor to produce food for them.

        Whenever the suffering classes have tried to rebel over the years, the rulers have technology which lets them block all sunlight to the valley where those laborers live, preventing crops from growing.

JUPITER – On this planet the inhabitants are twenty-five feet tall, have arms which emerge from their hips instead of near the shoulders, and have additional sensory organs protruding from their chins.

        The people of Jupiter live around boiling lakes, but have technology more advanced than Earth.

SATURN – Back to an average height of twelve feet for the dominant life form on Saturn where, like on the moon, the atmosphere is edible. The planet’s technology is far beyond even that of Jupiter and can all be traced back to the inventions and research of a brilliant female scientist from thousands of years earlier.

        Thanks to that woman, Saturn has sleek airships and explosives that are potentially continent-destroying. Readers are told that the Saturnian alphabet is similar to Chinese letters but this is not expanded upon. 

ALPHA CENTAURI – Intelligent life forms actually live inside that star itself. They have antigravity devices but beyond that we are told that their existence is too alien for humans to understand. Alpha Centauri is orbited by six planets which are inhabited by very religious civilizations.

POLARIS – This star is orbited by an assortment of inhabited planets. Among the standouts:

STAZZA – The largest planet of the Polaris System, far larger than Jupiter. This world is mostly liquid and is inhabited by large, four-armed humanoids who, in order to survive, must battle monstrous creatures from the lower depths.

        These humanoids actually have advanced technology, including powerful telescopes that let them observe the rest of the universe. 

TORTU – A very Earthlike planet with a civilization very similar to Earth of the past several decades (as of 1905). Tortuans have a custom of tattooing everyone with personalized tattoos for identification.

AIRESS – This planet has an atmosphere composed of liquids rather than gasses. Fortunately, the inhabitants can even drink the atmosphere for sustenance.

DUBHE – Another star, has its own system of planets.

PLASDEN – This planet which circles Dubhe is an all-water planet. The humanoid inhabitants have massive floating cities and floating mansions. Plasden is advanced in technology and at commerce. All their machines run on electricity and they have enormous music machines which can entertain entire cities at once.

THE GARDEN PLANET – Another planet which orbits Dubhe. This world has no name and is so far beyond Earth theologically that all its inhabitants are the equivalent of saints and the surface is entirely devoted to gardening. There is no disease or other suffering.

        Males and females interact only telepathically. These aliens worship the Christian God and are awaiting Christ’s Second Coming.

THE SCORPIO CONSTELLATION – Now jumping up to entire constellations instead of individual stars, the narration deals with inhabited planets without always naming the stars they revolve around. 

DORELYN – A technocratic planet which has achieved the heights of medical science.

SCUM – A tumultuous planet inhabited by humanoids so unevolved that they still walk on all fours. These beings have sex at random with no loyalty, and constantly wage destructive wars on each other. Any form of scientific or cultural development is loathed and innovators are immediately slain.

        There is not even a spoken language on Scum.

PLOID – This planet orbits the star Sirius. Ploid is the archetypal technological wonderland that science fiction of subsequent ages would use as a regular setting. It boasts flying machines, instant agriculture, transcontinental tube lines/ monorails, video broadcasts, mind-reading machines, etc.

ZIK – A world of perpetual warfare waged with high-tech weaponry. The wars are waged with superweapons on land, sea and air.

THE DIAMOND WORLD – This planet orbits Rigel. Most of the surface is made up of precious gems and soil is rare and almost priceless. A long-running conflict between business trusts and laborers seems to have no end in sight.

HOLEN – A planet riddled with holes, caves and tunnels. The life-forms are too alien for humans to comprehend.

THE MUTE WORLD – This is a planet which orbits Alcyone. Its mute inhabitants communicate purely through telepathy. The culture is simple but remarkably crime-free, given that everyone’s thoughts can be read by others.

BRIEF – Also orbiting Alcyone, this world is inhabited by life-forms which all have very short life-spans equaling at most three or four Earth years.

SWIFT – A scientifically advanced world populated by beautiful winged beings, including an angelic woman named Plume.

HEAVEN – Readers are told that this is, indeed THE Heaven, and it consists of several star systems populated by virtuous dead souls from around the universe. God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit and angels live there as well. Everyone here is immortal, with bodies that do not age nor are they afflicted by lust or desire.

Regular readers of Balladeer’s Blog may recall the many, many works of ancient science fiction from centuries ago onward which mix sci-fi concepts with religious beliefs. Life in a Thousand Worlds provides a great variety of planets, but nothing overall that is all that unique. In fact it gets repetitious and boring for long stretches.

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

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/