Tag Archives: Ancient Science fiction

ANCIENT SCIENCE FICTION: OMEGON (1915-1916)

OMEGON (1915-1916) – Written by George Frederick Stratton, this serialized story dealt with a fictional war of super-scientific weaponry between the United States on one side and China, Japan and Mexico on the other.

Omegon (Electrical Experimenter Sep 1915) is the title of the opening installment of five total, all of which I will review in this blog post. The main character of the entire work is Fred Cawthorne, a millionaire inventor and manufacturer in the electronics field.

With World War One raging, Cawthorne is exasperated at America’s failure to modernize its armed forces in case our nation gets caught up in the war, as of course, we did in 1917. Fred has proposed futuristic weapons himself and been rejected by the War Department.

Cawthorne seeks out other geniuses whose projects have been turned down by the short-sighted government and finances them himself. When America’s West Coast panics at the sight of a combined Japo-Chinese fleet approaching San Francisco, President Wilson is unprepared. Continue reading

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ANCIENT SCIENCE FICTION: A PROPHETIC ROMANCE; MARS TO EARTH (1896)

A PROPHETIC ROMANCE; MARS TO EARTH (1896) – Written by Boston’s John Mccoy in the form of reports sent from future Earth to Mars.

McCoy narrated this novel as the Lord Commissioner, a humanoid Martian sent from the Red Planet to Earth of the 1990s. Lord Commissioner is the title of official visitors that Mars’ one-planet government sends to all the other populated planets of the solar system when they become sufficiently advanced in science. Our narrator will be filing his reports from Earth to the Chancellor Commander of Mars, his superior. 

The entire novel is presented through those reports. Martians have long been capable of interplanetary travel and the Lord Commissioner journeys by spaceship to Earth with a brief stopover on the moon.

Our narrator observes the ruins of a long-dead civilization on the moon and notes that a lunar atmosphere is forming, which may benefit Earthlings when they become advanced enough to fly to their planet’s satellite.

From there the Lord Chancellor journeys on to Earth, but an Earth unlike the real 1990s ever were. Continue reading

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ANCIENT SCIENCE FICTION: A TRIP TO THE NORTH POLE (1903)

A TRIP TO THE NORTH POLE or DISCOVERY OF THE TEN TRIBES AS FOUND IN THE ARCTIC OCEAN (1903) – Written by Otte Julius Swenson Lindelof.

This is a work of Mormon science fiction. A detailed message in a bottle is found regarding the fate of the LDS whaling ship Mt. Walston and its crew, led by Captain Nye, Linder, Jost and Lothair. The manuscript is dated to the late 1870s and recounts the ship’s journey through the Bering Strait and on so far north that the crew discovered a region of warm temperatures.

The Americans come across an archipelago of more than ten islands which turn out to be populated by descendants of the ten Lost Tribes of Israel. The islands are ruled by a beautiful young queen and, in fact, all of the Arctic Israelites are excellent physical specimens thanks to the abnormally high nutritional value of the region’s foodstuffs. Continue reading

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ANCIENT SCIENCE FICTION: IN THE CLUTCH OF THE WAR-GOD (1911)

IN THE CLUTCH OF THE WAR-GOD (1911) – Written by Milo Milton Hastings and serialized in the July, August and September 1911 issues of Physical Culture magazine. 

The tale is set in the “far future” year 1958. Ethel Calvert, a young American woman, lives in Japan with her father, a grain magnate. The United States and Japan are on the verge of war and the author describes both nations as being “in the clutch of the war-god.”

In the fictional world of this story Japan has become so overpopulated that it has long since given over nearly all its land to housing rather than farming. That has made Japan dependent on other nations – mostly the United States – for food staples. Continue reading

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EL HOMBRE ARTIFICIAL (The Artificial Man) (1910) ANCIENT SCIENCE FICTION

EL HOMBRE ARTIFICIAL (1910) – This story was written by Uruguayan-born writer Horacio Quiroga under the alias S. Fragoso Lima. Quiroga moved to Argentina in 1902. Upon being diagnosed with stomach cancer in 1937 he committed suicide.

This particular tale was serialized in Argentina’s weekly publication Caras y Caretas from January 8th to February 12th, 1910.

The artificial man of the title is the work of three scientists. The leader is Nicholas Ivanovich Donisoff, a Russian prince who rebelled against the Tsarist regime and traveled in revolutionary circles. He was eventually forced to flee Russia and became renowned in the field of biochemistry.  Continue reading

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ANCIENT SCIENCE FICTION: ELEKTROPOLIS (1928)

ELEKTROPOLIS (1928) – By Otfrid von Hanstein. Readers are introduced to Fritz, a young German engineer who has been having trouble finding a job. On what turns out to be a lucky Friday the Thirteenth for him, he gets a job offer from a mysterious Mr. Schmidt.

The pay is too good to turn down, but Fritz is sworn to secrecy and must abide by certain other peculiar terms. The engineer loves the money and is increasingly intrigued by the mysterious circumstances.

Fritz does as instructed and is taken to Australia, part of the way via a high-tech airplane which has no pilot and is completely automated. Similarly, once in Australia he boards a fully automated train which takes him to a cluster of iron huts in the desert of the Australian Outback.  Continue reading

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WHEN CALIFORNIA WAS AN ISLAND (1510) ANCIENT SCIENCE FICTION(ISH)

LAS SERGAS DE ESPLANDIAN AKA The Adventures of Esplandian (1510) – There were many subsequent editions of this Spanish novel by Garci Rodriguez de Montalvo but 1510 is the year of the oldest known version. Part fantasy, part proto-science fiction and part chivalric romance saga, The Adventures of Esplandian is best remembered today for its supposed role in naming California. 

To begin with, Montalvo wrote this book as his own personal addition to the legends surrounding Amadis of Gaul. Esplandian, the son of Amadis, was also known as the Black Knight because of the color of his armor. After a series of adventures Esplandian and his forces conquered Constantinople, taking it from the Muslim armies. 

As the various Islamic city-states gather to besiege Constantinople many battles are fought, with Esplandian and his Christian forces managing to hold the city. The conflict widens, with Christians and Muslims alike sending word all around the world for allies to help defend or seize Constantinople.

Many chapters go by devoted to tales of the cosmopolitan rulers and warriors who journey to join their faith’s side in the ongoing war. Chapter FIFTY finally deals with a Muslim explorer named Radiaro who reaches California, but it’s a California that’s far from what you would expect. Continue reading

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ANCIENT SCIENCE FICTION: MESSAGES FROM MARS (1892)

Messages from Mars 2MESSAGES FROM MARS BY THE AID OF THE TELESCOPE PLANT (1892) – Written by Robert D Braine. I shortened the title for the blog post headline. The main character of this novel is a sailor named Nordhausen. After leaving Madagascar our hero winds up shipwrecked on an uncharted island.

While roaming this island Nordhausen finds plants with thick transparent leaves which refract light like lenses do. The sailor breaks off one of the leaves to study it more closely, only to be seized by the island’s native inhabitants, who have been watching him from hiding.

Messages from MarsThe natives take him through a cave entrance to their hidden village which is a blend of the primitive and the futuristic. For the “sacrilege” of damaging one of the telescope plants Nordhausen is to be executed. The means? A device formed from several of the lens-like leaves which magnify the sunlight into a makeshift heat-ray, like holding a magnifying glass over a piece of paper to catch it on fire. 

Our hero is saved at the last minute by a beautiful woman named Raimonda, who wants him spared. When her own words are not sufficient to stay the execution she enlists the King of Mars to persuade the natives to spare Nordhausen.

Raimonda explains to the freed sailor that the island is called Roxana and its inhabitants Roxanans. Long ago two shipwrecked scientists from Europe showed the Roxanans how to use the incredible leaves of the sacred plant to construct telescopes.

The telescopes led to the discovery of intelligent and advanced life on Mars (Oron to the people of the Red Planet) and eventually two-way communication between the islanders and the “Martials” as the book calls the inhabitants of Mars – interchangeably with “Oronites, as the aliens call themselves. Continue reading

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ANCIENT SCIENCE FICTION: BABYLON ELECTRIFIED (1888)

Babylon ElectrifiedBABYLON ELECTRIFIED (1888) – Written by Albert Bleunard. In the tradition of his fellow Frenchman, Jules Verne, Bleunard crafted this work of science fiction with an international cast.

British magnate Sir James Badger wants to reestablish old trade routes leading from Europe eastward through Mesopotamia and the Persian Gulf. He and his associates plan a railroad but lack of coal in sufficient quantities seems to be a project-killer.

Jack Adams, one of Badger’s colleagues, recommends the new invention of a French electrical engineer and inventor named Cornille. This inventor has designed a method of generating electricity from sunlight aka solar power. He agrees to let his technology be used to construct an electric train for the railroad project. 

Things get underway, with hydroelectric dams built in the mountains of Kurdistan and wind plus tidal power-stations set up in the Persian Gulf. Cornille’s solar tech will be used for the overwhelming majority of the territory to be covered. Continue reading

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CHRISTMAS IN THE YEAR 2000 (1895) ANCIENT SCIENCE FICTION

edward bellamyCHRISTMAS IN THE YEAR 2000 (1895) – This was written by Edward Bellamy as one of the additions he made to the lore surrounding his look at the world of the “future” year 2000 AD in Looking Backward (1888). 

In Bellamy’s year 2000 Christmas is still celebrated, but in ways that are so different that they would be unrecognizable to a person of 1895. Readers are told that many in the year 2000 are astonished to learn that people of the 1890s marked Christmas at all given how every element of society in that time seemed devoted to ignoring Christmas and all it meant. Continue reading

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