A ROUND TRIP TO THE YEAR 2000 aka A FLIGHT THROUGH TIME (1903) – Written by THE William Wallace Cook, this story was originally serialized in Argosy magazine from July through November of 1903.
A Round Trip to the Year 2000 has the same light-hearted, jocular approach that we associate with the Back to the Future movies. The fact that the time travel device is a reconfigured automobile adds another similarity.
In the year 1900, New York author Emerson Lumley has written a book about the possible uses of the subconscious mind. A criminal took advantage of Lumley’s methods in the book to hypnotize the author into robbing a bank and Emerson is now on the run from the law, with his most dogged pursuer being police detective Jasper Klinch.
Lumley is contemplating suicide when he receives help from the midget scientist named Dr Alonso Kelpie. The good doctor takes Emerson to the laboratory on his estate. He offers Lumley the chance to drive Kelpie’s newly-invented time-coupe into the future, specifically the year 2000. In return Alonso wants his chrononaut to bring back assorted information when the coast is clear.
Since Lumley was already on the verge of ending his life anyway, he agrees to be the human guinea pig for Dr Kelpie’s time-car. Just as he’s driving off to the future, however, the relentless Detective Klinch shows up and leaps into the vehicle beside our hero.
The pair grapple as the car drives through the time-stream and Lumley knocks Klinch off the car and into the year 1950 while he continues the trip to the year 2000. Continue reading
THE STRUGGLE FOR EMPIRE: A STORY OF THE YEAR 2236 (1900) – Written by Robert W Cole. I left out the first half of the title for the headline, since The Struggle For Empire sounds like a mundane history book. In reality this novel was a very, very early example of the Space Opera sub-genre.
Initially the Earth colonized and inhabited the planets and certain moons of our own solar system all the way out to Neptune. (Pluto was not discovered until 1930.) In a quaint quasi-Steam-Punk way, all of those planets and moons have Earth-like atmospheres and conditions.
THE STRANGER – Given the current uproar over the disastrous Chibnall retcon, Balladeer’s Blog takes a look at the “brief shining moment” when Colin Baker was starring in what is often called a bootleg Doctor Who series. Less antagonistic interpretations call the BBV series a pastiche or a knowing “homage” to Doctor Who.
*** The most popular companion of Baker’s Doctor was Peri Brown, played by Nicola Bryant. The Stranger’s companion was “Miss Brown,” played by Nicola Bryant.
KILLRAVEN: THE END
This final Killraven installment will deal with just two issues of Sabre. One that reflects what KR and his band of Freemen would have faced had they reached their Yellowstone Park destination before their 1973-1976 series was canceled, and one that reflects another adventure that the rebellious Freemen might have faced on their long odyssey to Yellowstone.
KILLRAVEN GRAPHIC NOVEL (1983)
UP IN THE AIR AND DOWN IN THE SEA (1863) – Written by William S Hayward, this story was originally serialized in The Boy’s Journal from February to August of 1863. In 1865 it was published in novel form as The Cloud King.
Years later, when Volans was a teenager, his parents moved the entire family to California to try to cash in on the Gold Rush. Victor took jobs to earn his own money and returned to his ballooning experiments.
KILLRAVEN GRAPHIC NOVEL (1983)
THE WAR UNDER THE SEA (1892) – Written by Georges Le Faure. This sci-fi work was intended as an escapist societal salve to a French public still smarting from their loss to Germanic forces during the Franco-Prussian War just over two decades earlier.
Interestingly enough, despite this threat the Germans are not depicted as being any more bloodthirsty than the alleged “heroes” of this story as we will see. Though the Count and his allies prove equally callous about large-scale killing (and worse) their attitude is romanticized and approved of by the narrative since Andre and the others are fighting France’s traditional Continental foes the Germans. Instead of Film Noir think of this novel’s approach as callous enough to be called World Noir. Or at least Politics Noir.
KILLRAVEN GRAPHIC NOVEL (1983)
A MODERN DAEDALUS (1887) – By Tom Greer. No, the title’s not referring to James Joyce’s character Stephen Dedalus (sic) but this tale IS about Ireland. The main character is a young man named Jack O’Halloran, a recent college graduate who returns to his native Ireland.