PSI CASSIOPEIA, or STAR: A MARVELOUS HISTORY OF WORLDS IN OUTER SPACE (1854) – Written by Dr Charlemagne Ischer Defontenay, a French M.D. and author. Long before J.R.R. Tolkien churned out obsessive amounts of fine detail about his fictional Middle Earth, Defontenay produced this volume of history, poetry and drama from his fictional planets in the star system Psi Cassiopeia.
The narrator of the story is supposedly translating alien documents which he discovered in an artificial meteor that crashed in the Himalayas. The documents were from a planet called (incongruously enough) “Star.”
The system where that planet is located is a three-star system. Ruliel is the large, white star at the center, around which orbit the two lesser stars Altether (green) and Erragror (blue). The planet called Star is orbited by large planetoids/ moons named Tassul, Lessur, Rudar and Elier. Throwing all science to the winds the planet is also orbited by a small red star called Urrias.
Star and its satellites are inhabited except, of course, for Urrias. The translated documents cover a roughly 1,000 year period of events regarding these worlds. The ancient Starian humanoids formed a united world-wide culture which started as an Empire before becoming a socialist planet economically and politically. The documents also claim that their culture boasted beautiful architecture, incredible feats of engineering and awe-inspiring works of art.
At one point a plague swept the globe, reducing the proud Starian civilization to chaos. A Nihilist Cult formed as the plague kept whittling away at the population over the course of years. In the post-apocalyptic ruins the Nihilists formed a fanatical religion devoted to ending all life on Star. The zealots formed armies which exterminated millions of Starians with the intention of taking their own lives when all non-members of their cult had been wiped out. Continue reading
WITHIN AN ACE OF THE END OF THE WORLD (1900) – Written by Robert Barr. No doubt about it, Barr was obsessed with the notion of humanity possibly bringing on its own demise through ill-considered scientific tampering. Recently Balladeer’s Blog reviewed another of his stories, The Doom of London, which mined the same creative territory. 
THE DOOM OF LONDON (1892) – Written by Robert Barr. In the “far future” of the mid-Twentieth Century the narrator of this tale looks back at the catastrophe that hit London in the 1890s. 
THE THAMES VALLEY CATASTROPHE (1884) – Written by Grant Allen. The story is presented in the form of a memoir about the destruction of London as seen from “the futuristic” 20th Century. 
THE QUEER SIDE OF THINGS (1890s) – Written by James Frank Sullivan. Straight from the Gay Nineties, it’s a selection of Sullivan’s contributions to the Strand magazine’s short fiction column The Queer Side of Things. 
GULLIVAR JONES ON MARS aka Lt. Gullivar Jones – His Vacation and various other titles and spellings, was published in 1905 and is one VERY odd piece of work. The author was Edwin L. Arnold, whose ineptitude made this novel very unfulfilling as he defeated his storyline at every turn. Before I get into this third and final part of my review of Gullivar Jones on Mars the links to the first two parts are below: 
MORNING ON THE ISLE OF BEASTS – We pick up the morning after our hero, U.S. Navy Lieutenant Gullivar Jones, survived the night on the Isle of Beasts – my name for the place, since Edwin couldn’t be bothered to provide names for places or characters much of the time. 
A VOYAGE TO THE WORLD IN THE CENTRE OF THE EARTH (1755) – This intriguing work was published in London anonymously and no author has yet been decisively identified. The novel’s narrator – who remains as anonymous as the book’s author – parties away his inheritance and then ships out for Italy. 
CASANOVA’S ICOSAMERON OR THE STORY OF EDWARD AND ELIZABETH WHO SPENT EIGHTY-ONE YEARS IN THE LAND OF THE MEGA-MICRES, ORIGINAL INHABITANTS OF PROTOCOSMOS IN THE INTERIOR OF OUR GLOBE (1788) – Yes, that IS the actual, complete title of this obscure item and yes, it was written by THE Giovanni Giacomo Casanova, the legendary ladies’ man and adventurer. 
The pair of twenty-somethings prove their identity through that beloved fictional trope of birthmarks and scars, then proceed to tell their tale. When the ship that Elizabeth and Edward were aboard sank at sea the then-children climbed into an empty, water-tight coffin in the cargo hold. 
THE AMERICAN ADVENTURER: STORY OF THE SECOND TRAVELER (1879) – While looking for new blog posts to mark Frontierado this year I unexpectedly came across this short story that is more sci-fi than Wild West. 
TRAVELS IN THE INTERIOR (1887) – Nearly eighty years before the movie Fantastic Voyage, this work of “ancient” science fiction detailed a party of shrunken heroes on an odyssey through a human being’s body. This cleverly-titled tale was written by Alfred Taylor Schofield under the name Luke T Courteney. 
Balladeer's Blog 