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
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. 
BABYLON 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. 
CHRISTMAS 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). 
THE DOMINION IN 1983 (1883) – Written by “Ralph Centennius,” the presumed pseudonym of an unknown author. 
Canadian technology leads the world, with rocketships that can fly at a mile per second and electric automobiles for ground transport. Electricity is the predominant energy source, and Electropolis, the first all-electric city, was recently completed. 
Balladeer's Blog 