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Scientific Romance:
An International Anthology of Pioneering Science Fiction

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Before the term "science fiction" was adopted in the 1920s, there were "scientific romances," tales of amazing journeys beyond the limits of the known world. Jules Verne's imaginative novels of the mid-nineteenth century met with international success, whetting the public's appetite for fantastic fiction rooted in actual fact — a craving that H. G. Wells satisfied with his visionary stories.

This compilation presents more than two dozen early tales by Verne's and Wells's immediate predecessors, contemporaries, and descendants, focusing on the middle period, when the genre was at its most enterprising and exuberant. Originally published between 1835 and 1924, the stories offer early interpretations of the futuristic societies, rogue stars, rebellious machines, and other now-familiar themes of speculative fiction. Featured authors include Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Ambrose Bierce, H. G. Wells, Jack London, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, as well as lesser-known writers.

CONTENTS:
Introduction by Brian Stableford
The Conversation of Eiros and Charmion by Egar Allen Poe
A Heavenward Voyage by S Henry Berthoud
The Artist of the Beautiful by Nathaniel Hawthorne
What Was It? by Fitz-James O’Brien
The End of the World by Eugene Mouton
A Paradoxical Ode (After Shelley) by James Clark Maxwell
The Ablest Man in the World by Edward Page Mitchell
Josuah Electricmann by Ernest D’Hervilly
The Child of the Phalanstery by Grant Allen
The Salvation of Nature by John Davidson
Tornadres by J.-H. Rosny
Professor Bakermann’s Microbe by Charles Epheyre
In the Year Ten Thousand by Edgar Fawcett
The Revolt of the Machines by Émile Goudeau
For the Akhoond by Ambrose Bierce
The Philosophy of Relative Existences by Frank R. Stockton
June 1993 by Julian Hawthorne
The Dancing Partner by Jerome K. Jerome
The Conqueror of Death by Camille Debans
The Star by H. G. Wells
A Corner in Lightning by George Griffith
The Memory Cell by Walter Besant
The Shadow and the Flash by Jack London
The Gorilloid by Edmond Haraucourt
The Voice in the Night by William Hope Hodgson
The Singular Fate of Bouvancourt by Maurice Renard
The Horror of the Heights by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
A Chronology of the Most Important Longer Works of Scientific Romance Published Between 1830 and August 1914

Published by Dover Publications in January 2017
ISBN: 978-0-486-80837-6

Review by Michael Dirda

In the mid-1920s Hugo Gernsback, editor of Amazing Stories, coined the term “scientifiction,” an ugly mouthful that soon morphed into “science fiction.” Before then, speculative novels and stories were loosely referred to as fantasies, romances, future war fiction, adventures in the style of Jules Verne or, as H.G. Wells titled an 1899 collection, “tales of space and time.” Still, the phrase most often used to describe early sf — the preferred abbreviation for this beloved literary genre — is “scientific romance.”

This is also the title of Brian Stableford’s new anthology of “pioneering science fiction” from Britain, the United States and France. The book opens with Edgar Allan Poe’s innocuous-sounding “Conversation of Eiros and Charmion” — in actuality, the description of Earth’s fiery destruction by a comet — and ends with Arthur Conan Doyle’s “The Horror of the Heights,” in which a pilot discovers monstrous creatures living high above the clouds in the upper atmosphere. Also included are such classics as “What Was It?,” Fitz-James O’Brien’s ultimately piteous tale of an invisible entity, Jerome K. Jerome’s “The Dancing Partner,” in which a clockwork automaton goes berserk, and William Hope Hodgson’s “The Voice in the Night,” a masterpiece of horror about a young couple marooned on an island infested with a strangely rampant fungus.

Many other stories of comparable power deserve to be better known. In Grant Allen’s “The Child of the Phalanstery” a utopian society of the far future requires that babies with physical defects be put to death. In this world, prayers are called “aspirations,” God has been replaced by the “Spirit of Humanity,” and Darwin is the name of a December holiday. Allen’s sensitive depiction of an anguished community includes no villains, only victims. John Davidson’s “The Salvation of Nature” starts with Scotland being transformed into a theme park, where the costumed visitors pretend to be figures from history and legend, but ends with global devastation. In George Griffith’s “A Corner in Lightning,” an entrepreneur discovers a way to control all the world’s electricity. In Walter Besant’s “The Memory Cell,” a scientist can wipe minds clear of unhappy memories and install false but happy ones in their stead. Philip K. Dick would make this one of his signature themes.

In recent years, Brian Stableford has been translating the core works of what the French call the “roman scientifique,” in particular the fiction of J.H. Rosny, Maurice Renard — sometimes dubbed the French H.G. Wells — and Edmond Haraucourt. All are represented here with superb short stories. Instead of Rosny’s well-known “The Xipehuz” — my own favorite tale of alien invasion — Stableford chooses “Tornadres,” in which an isolated community suffers an astral attack, prefigured by panic among animals, alien sounds and a peculiar feeling of weightlessness. The invader eventually manifests itself as “a large rectangle the color of rust,” which blots out the stars and sends out waves of debilitating redness across the landscape. Eschewing Rosny’s phantasmagoric style, Haraucourt’s “The Gorilloid” reproduces the cool precision of a scientific lecture. In the distant future, civilized apes discover not only the bones of ancient humans but also a living specimen of the otherwise extinct race. In his prefatory note, Stableford calls “The Gorilloid” a masterpiece, though he fails to mention whether Pierre Boulle, author of the much later novel “Planet of the Apes ,” was influenced by it.

Review by Sally Startup

A playful novel, narrated by Gabriel, an aspiring playwright on his Grand Tour. Having already spent some time in Paris, where he attended many plays and also fell in love, he has recently arrived in Venice. It is the mid Eighteenth-century, at the time of Carnival, only ten years before the festivities will be abolished under Austrian rule. Gabriel is especially interested in the commedia dell’arte, and also admires Carlo Goldoni, Carlo Gozzi and Molière.

Not long after arriving in Venice, Gabriel stumbles, quite literally, on the Devil. The young man is kind to the Devil, who appears to have fallen. The Devil is grateful and offers to return the favour with an invitation to a play. Some time later, after the entanglement of various strands of narrative, it becomes clear that this particular play has great significance to those characters in search of ‘the portals of paradise’.

Having initially perceived Venice as decadent and dispiriting, Gabriel is slowly drawn into a more lively appreciation of its layered complexity. Gradually, his role as detached observer develops into that of a player. However, he has no idea which of the plots slowly revealed to him are the most truthful.

Since the story is told in the form of a novel, Gabriel’s own inner thoughts can be reported at length. As he puzzles over what happens to him, readers may also play imaginatively with ideas of their own. Such activity will remake the story differently for every reader, layering personal interpretations over Gabriel’s narrated thoughts and his retrospective descriptions of events. Characters, narrator, author and reader are all most skilfully encouraged to play together.

The Brian Stableford Website