Showing 257–272 of 303 resultsSorted by popularity
“Paris is like a forest in the New World where a score of savage tribes struggle for existence; each group lives on what it can get by hunting throughout society.” In The Parisian Jungle, Paul Féval, the father of the modern detective novel, turns Paris-the beating heart of civilization-into a dangerous jungle whose undergrowth shelters…
From 1895, when the means of visiting the future through drug-induced “timeshadowing” is discovered by Professor Copplestone, to 12 million years AD, when the Universal Engine seeks to determine the cosmos’ ultimate fate, the vast tapestry of time is the theater of a time war between the Overmen, descendents of the vampires, Humanity, and the…
Of all the authors who followed in the footsteps of Jules Verne, the most important was Albert Robida (1848-1926), a writer-artist who also became the founding father of science fiction illustration. Robida wrote and illustrated his own scientific anticipations, such as The Adventures of Saturnin Farandoul (1879) and The Twentieth Century (1883). The Clock of…
For over a century, the Black Coats have ransacked Europe, accumulating wealth beyond the dreams of avarice. The location of their treasure is known only by their godfather, Colonel Bozzo-Corona, but now some members of the High Council of the criminal brotherhood have banded together to form the Companions of the Treasure, a cabal-within-the-cabal which…
Sandwiched between Arnould Galopin’s Doctor Omega (1906) and Edgar Rice Burroughs’ A Princess of Mars (1912), Gustave Le Rouge’s masterpiece, Le Prisonnier de la Planète Mars (1908) and its sequel, La Guerre des Vampires (1909), are a Martian Odyssey in which young engineer Robert Darvel is dispatched to Mars ny the psychic powers of Hindu…
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…
During an expedition to the North Pole, French aeronauts Jean-Louis de Venasque and Jacques Ceintras stumble upon an alien society of technologically-advanced reptilian humanoids living in a secret enclave that has been isolated from the world for millions of years. Charles Derennes (1882-1930) was one of the pioneers of French science fiction who followed in…
The Martian Epic, written in 1921, is a ground-breaking novel on several levels. First, as a sequel of sorts to H.-G. Wells’ War of the Worlds, which is treated here as a prophetic vision heralding the all-out, destructive Martian attack of 1978. Second, as a post-cataclysmic epic, in which a handful of scientists battle hordes…
Felix Bodin’s The Novel of the Future was first published in 1834. Although it attracted little attention at the time, it has since been solidly established as a landmark work within the canon of futuristic science fiction. As a prediction of life in the second half of 20th century, The Novel of the Future scores…
What if a meteorite dug up by a Colorado oil prospector turned out to contain a mummified body believed to originate on Mars? Initially written in 1864 as a hoax by the science correspondent of a French newspaper, An Inhabitant of the Planet Mars immediately caught the attention of Jules Verne’s publisher who released it…
Leo Saint-Clair, alias the Nyctalope, was created in 1911 by Jean de La Hire, one of France’s most prolific serial writers. Gifted with night vision, hypnotic powers and an artificial heart, Saint-Clair is a fearless hero who battles colorful super-villains. His adventures, which spanned 30 years, created a template that was later adopted by such…
This second collection (after NEWS FROM THE MOON) of 13 proto-science fiction tales and other scientific romances, penned between 1796 and 1921, is translated and annotated by renowned science fiction writer and scholar Brian Stableford. From cosmic journeys exploring Mars and Jupiter, examining the nature, languages and reproductive methods of various alien species, to the…
Pirates! Mummies! Cannibals! Intelligent Apes! Samurais! Cossacks! And even Saturnians! Meet Saturnin Farandoul and his companions, the fearless Mandibul and the extravagant Tournesol, as they travel the Earth and beyond in a series of wild and picaresque adventures! Of all the authors who followed in the footsteps of Jules Verne, the most important was Albert…
1821. Thanks to the technique recently discovered by Victor Frankenstein, it is now possible to resurrect the dead. The British Crown put their best man, former Scotland Yard Superintendent Gregory Temple on the trail of criminal mastermind Henri de Belcamp, a.k.a. John Devil, who plans to use such technology, and the “Grey Men” it produces,…
The Extraordinary Adventures of a Russian Scientist Across the Solar System is an ambitious Vernian cosmic saga written between 1888 and 1896 by Georges Le Faure and Henri de Graffigny. Where Verne had limited his hero Hector Servadac to traveling on a comet, Le Faure and de Graffigny tell the detailed story of the exploration…
The Extraordinary Adventures of a Russian Scientist Across the Solar System is an ambitious Vernian cosmic saga written between 1888 and 1896 by Georges Le Faure and Henri de Graffigny. Where Verne had limited his hero Hector Servadac to traveling on a comet, Le Faure and de Graffigny tell the detailed story of the exploration…
