Last month Balladeer’s Blog gave an overview of the German sci-fi hero Captain Mors the Air Pirate HERE. The character is criminally overlooked and deserves a much higher profile. It’s puzzling that the Germans themselves haven’t taken advantage of the way his weekly text stories were set in a historical period BEFORE so much pop culture centers around German figures.
MASTER OF THE SKIES – The first short story featuring Kapitan Mors der Luftpirat is set in 1905. This origin tale saw him visit the mountain graves of his wife and children before leading his European and Indian crew against the villains responsible for their deaths and for his fugitive status.
They fly their futuristic Luftschiff (airship) to the port of Odessa where, amid the historical events of the failed 1905 uprising against the Tsars the captain and his men isolate and kill his targets. The advanced weapons and construction of the Luftschiff keep them safe from the artillery used against them. Mors hangs three of the evildoers from his airship. Continue reading
CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL or THE LAST DAYS OF A PHILOSOPHER (1830) – Written by THE Sir Humphrey Davy, this is largely a work of philosophical discourse but with one section devoted to a science fiction tale: The Vision. 
The first planet they travel to is Saturn, where Davy is awestruck by the alien landscape. Strange clouds fill the skies and among the oddest planetary features are large columns of liquid which flow from the ground upward. Saturn is inhabited by intelligent beings with three pairs of wings and organs like elephant trunks dangling from their bodies. 
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. 
A PROPHETIC ROMANCE; MARS TO EARTH (1896) – Written by Boston’s John Mccoy in the form of reports sent from future Earth to Mars. 
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.
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. 
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. 
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. 
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. 
MESSAGES 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. 
The 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. 
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