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| Written between 1895 and 1912, Gaston de Pawlowski's Journey
to the Land of the Fourth Dimension predates by almost 20 years Olaf Stapledon's
Last and First Men. In this prodigious future history, we shall visit
the singular era of the Leviathan, when a colossal entity enveloped men
like cells in a gigantic body, the time of the Scientific Tyranny, when
the Savants ruled supreme, and finally the Great Idealist Renaissance,
or Age of the Golden Eagle, when the fourth dimension becomes familiar
to all men. We shall meet homunculi and supermen, intelligent machines
and giant microbes.
"Much primitive futuristic fiction now seems banal and unadventurous
in its anticipations, but there is nothing banal about Pawlowski's future
history. The surreal quality of his futuristic vignettes-especially
those dealing with "atomic dissociation" and future biotechnologies
in the Scientific Era-has been given an extra edge by actual advances
in modern science." Brian Stableford.
This volume also contains the preface to the 1923 edition by Pawlowski
in which the author explores and attempts to come to terms, philosophically
and scientifically, with the impact of Einsteinian physics upon his
work.
Cover by Bruno B. Bordier
Published by Black Coat Press in 2009
ISBN: 978-1-934543-37-5
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