THE FEARSOME ISLAND (1896) ANCIENT SCIENCE FICTION

THE FEARSOME ISLAND (1896) – Written by British author Albert Kinross. An unusual work with a multi-layered narrative. The entire novel was penned by Kinross, but it is one of the countless works of fiction presented as if it is a rediscovered manuscript relating the “true” adventures of Silas Fordred from the 1500s. Kinross adds another layer by explaining the sci-fi devices that Fordred could not comprehend and put down to sorcery and the supernatural. 

For clarity’s sake I will present the entire narrative in order rather than double back with the science fiction rationalizations that Kinross added, as well as his fictional “research” into the mad scientist of the island – Don Diego Rodriguez.

In the late 1400s but definitely before the voyages of Christopher Columbus, Rodriguez was a wealthy but cruel blue-blooded man who gloried in torturing victims during the Inquisition. His mad genius enabled him to invent many devices so far ahead of his time that his fellow Spaniards considered them the work of Satan. 

Don Diego’s futuristic torture devices were so brutal that they made even the callous masters of the Inquisition flinch. Scornful but frightened of Rodriguez, they ordered him to leave Spain and take his inventions and his toddler daughter with him.

The authorities didn’t even want the man’s tainted wealth, so he was permitted to take all of it with him. He had it all loaded onto the “strange” ship which he had his servants construct. To the shock of all the Spaniards watching, that ship moved westward on the Atlantic Ocean at an incredible speed but with no sails or oars being employed.

Rodriguez “discovered” the New World before Columbus (Hey, get in line, Rodriguez!) and settled on an island in the Antilles Archipelago. The island was inhabited by a humanoid race who were more like cave people than like contemporary humanity.

Employing his advanced inventions, Don Diego enslaved the male and female brutes of the island, forcing them to build a formidable castle for him and his child and to stock it with his high-tech devices. In the ensuing years he indulged his mad, sadistic desires and eventually wiped out the entire population of the cave-people.

Well, except for one of the males, who was still alive after Rodriguez met his maker. Diego’s daughter had been taught enough of her father’s science that she could wield some of it herself but did not truly comprehend it.

She and the brute remained alive, as discovered in 1558 by two ship-wrecked sailors, one of them the aforementioned Silas Fordred of Hythe and the other his shipmate Thomas Snoad.  

Silas and Tom come upon a large bronze robot designed to rip in half anyone who tries removing the diamonds from around its neck. The bronze figure kills Thomas Snoad in the attempt. 

Now alone, Silas encounters the brute, who still runs around naked. Silas “adopts” him and names him Esau.

Our hero clashes with the incredibly old, bearded daughter of Don Diego Rodriguez, who tries to kill them with her father’s advanced technology, which Silas mistakes for witchcraft. Shelter is sought in Castle Rodriguez but Silas struggles to survive its assorted death-traps. 

He attributes everything to magic as he encounters door knockers which grab hold of intruders, rooms which unleash poisonous gasses on them, a huge sword-wielding steel arm which nearly kills him, and similar devices.

In a Dark Chamber lies most of the gold and jewels of the late Rodriguez. Silas and Esau ultimately loot the castle and load as much plunder as they can on board Rodriguez’s still-functioning sea vessel. The pair manage to get it moving via its motor (which Silas assumes is magic, of course) and leave the island behind.

After a long time at sea and with the motor now out of power, the pair are fortunate to be rescued by the crew of the ship Queen Marie, which took them aboard and towed the “barque with silver handles” behind them as they sailed to England. Silas and Esau had been without food or water for days, and the brute passed away from his condition.

Silas Fordred survived, and the valuables from Castle Rodriguez made him a wealthy man. He produced his sworn statement and account of his adventures on the island, but it had languished in the archives of Hythe until Albert Kinross “came across it” and published this book.   

In a bit of sloppiness, Kinross simply tells us that the motorized boat which was towed back to Hythe along with him sat in his back yard. Not even one throwaway sentence about anyone taking further interest in it.

The Fearsome Island is fun, at least for a one-time read. It is not clear if Albert Kinross intended Rodriguez’s treatment of the indigenous islanders as an allegory for the real-life treatment of the “New World’s” inhabitants. He was either being incredibly subtle or the parallels didn’t occur to him. 

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