ANCIENT SCIENCE FICTION: TO JUPITER VIA HELL (1908)

Full title: THE REV. JOHN SMITH DIED – AND WENT TO JUPITER VIA HELL (1908) – This bizarre but memorable work was published by the Juno Society of the time and was written by an anonymous author. The title clergyman passes away and finds himself in Hell – not forever, but as an ambassador to Jupiter.

Before he can be sent to that interplanetary posting Smith must witness the horrors of Hell. In this odd tale the ruler of Hell is a woman named Satinita the Sexless Queen. She first shows him how many fellow clergymen are in Hell for eternal punishment.

After that, Satinita takes Rev. Smith on a tour of New York City’s Red Light District, bars, illegal casinos … and the Stock Exchange. Following this ham-fisted attempt at satire, Smith is dropped off on Jupiter as a guest of the planet’s Omu Family.

The family members become his guide to life on Jupiter, where everyone is ruled by a being called the Unity. There is one planet-wide language, and that’s just the beginning.

At the Earth equivalent of age 7, everyone works for the Unity. Workers get paid in Energy Units and in social merit units which enable each Jovian to pursue upward mobility. Enough merit units can even let one achieve a spot on the council of elders for life, and people on Jupiter live to be 100 or older.

There is no money on Jupiter, nor any businesses, lawyers nor crime. Why no crime? Because the Unity decreed that all criminals be confined to “training facilities” not just for their own lifetimes, but their next two generations of descendants also suffered that fate. If they were not deemed cured of their criminal tendencies by the end of that third generation, they were all put to death.   

As for technology on Jupiter, there are pneumatic tubes which deliver goods to each Jovian’s residence. Electricity is siphoned off of the moons of Jupiter to power electric automobiles and all the rest of the planet’s advanced science. Yet oddly, horse-drawn vehicles are an option.

Boats travel across bodies of water via jet propulsion and monorails exist as a form of public transport. Visual phones are owned by everyone, and food is “free” if you don’t count the fact that the citizens have to labor since age 7 to earn appropriate Energy Units for it.

There are no houses of worship on Jupiter and the Unity’s One Commandment is “Be neighborly.” (And slave away from age 7 until you die.) 

An almost Aleister Crowleyesque note comes at the end as Rev. Smith is told that on Jupiter, they believe “There is no God, and if there were one, we wouldn’t want Him. Religion is love.” And the novel ends.

*** Okay, obviously To Jupiter Via Hell was trying to be like the 1800s utopian sci-fi novels but we’re all left wondering why Smith had to be dead for all this to happen. And how is being a passive observer of life on Jupiter being an “ambassador?” And why did the writer use all-caps as frequently as they’re used in online rants here in the present day?

As comedy this book isn’t funny and as social satire it’s awkward and ham-fisted. The author should have divided this into two separate, unrelated works – one making their points against religion & notions of God and Satan, and the other making their points bashing socialism … or supporting socialism since those points are so poorly written it could be interpreted either way.   

I would not recommend this odd and unsatisfying novel. 

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