Question - Science Fiction Pre-WWI (FRI)

Early Science Fiction is going to become rather important in one of my timelines, which is unfortunate given that my knowledge begins and ends with War of the Worlds and Jules Verne. It picks up again a little in the thirties and on, but that's only barely of use.

What I need is a comprehension of proto- and early-SciFi from the late 1800s through World War Two, especially by European authors, and especially from the window 1890-1920.

Now I somewhat doubt that anyone has piles of old Science Fiction they're dying to send me, and I will be mostly digging around on my own, but I'd appreciate recommendations of books, authors, or websites to investigate.
 
Early Sci-Fi

Check out the Pulp magazines of the 1900's, Hugo Gernsback(sp), and Astounding magazine. I hope that helps.
 
I read a good anthology called "Science fiction by the rivals of H G Wells". There was some genuinely cool stuff in it: Thames valley volcanoes, Franco-British submarine warfare (the brits win, of course ;)), Atlantis, bioterror, bizarre methods of space travel, robots...

And the whole thing comes with the original illustrations. It was an excellent book.
 
Sam Moskowitz's "Science Fiction by Gaslight" is a good selection of stuff from pre-WWI, but it's hard to find now. Used to be a copy at my local library, but it's since gone bye-bye, no doubt to make room for more romance novels and cookbooks written by celebrities.

Bruce
 
Incidentally, I am kicking myself for only now remembering Lovecraft. He apparently is very well suited to my ends, though unfortunately he limited himself to contemporary eras and ancient monsters instead of a proper job of speculation.

It's useless for this project, but I do remember reading a Soviet science fiction piece from the 1930s that was rather intriguing. Good Soviet schoolboys are transported to the future, where they witness the communist utopia. They spectate on a sporting competition that requires the athletes to pilot airplanes (airplanes with music instead of engine noise) and visit the Soviet Socialist Republic of Brazil. It's explained that the world was unified by the combined action of the Red Army and local revolutions. Fun stuff.

I think I'll end up in the pulp, actually. Senarens in particular seems to be something like what I'm looking for. It's not the more thoughtful pieces I want, so much as the ones that would be attractive to an adolescent.

Did Germany have any Science Fiction writers?
 
It's useless for this project, but I do remember reading a Soviet science fiction piece from the 1930s that was rather intriguing. Good Soviet schoolboys are transported to the future, where they witness the communist utopia. They spectate on a sporting competition that requires the athletes to pilot airplanes (airplanes with music instead of engine noise) and visit the Soviet Socialist Republic of Brazil. It's explained that the world was unified by the combined action of the Red Army and local revolutions. Fun stuff.
Holy crap, I actually read a translated excerpt from that story during my Russian history seminar last year. Forgot the title though, though I managed to find the anthology it was published in. I'll have for you tomorrow.

As for the topic at hand, if you’re looking for stories, I’d recommend just trawling the Internet for sites that archive transcriptions of books with expired copyrights. Project Gutenburg is an excellent source. Forgotten Futures, which specialized in British SF from the pre-WWI period, is another good stop.

I would also recommend that you get ahold of some secondary sources as well. I’ve spent some time looking for scientific romances in the past, and one of the problems I’ve come across is the sheer difficulty of finding these stories. Most of these were pulp novels or magazine serials written to earn a quick buck, and as result little effort has been made in preserving them. A lot of the time, the only place you’ll ever find a title is in scholarly analysis of science fiction. Fortunately, there are plenty of those to go around. For basic reference purposes, I’d suggest finding a general encyclopedia of science fiction, preferably one focusing on the Victorian era. I’d also highly recommend Voices Prophesying War, I. F. Clarke’s study of the “future war” in sci-fi. It predominantly focuses on material from the 1870-1914 period, but there’s plenty of interesting diversions. If you’re looking for studies of sci-fi outside the Anglo-Francosphere, my only advice would be to wander through a university library and grab any national sci-fi overviews you can find. I know there’s a few focusing on Russian/Soviet SF floating around out there.
 
The fairly inclusive reference book you want to read is Jess Nevins' Encyclopeida of Fantastic Victoriana, Monkey Brains Books 2005. Its a bit expensive but an incredible resource. Nevins is also responsible for books that closely examine the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen graphic novels which you should also look at.

Clarke's work was reprinted by Syracuse University Press as 'The Tale of the Next Great War, 1871-1914'.

George Griffith, author of Angel of the Revolution among others, is pretty prolific and I've read two of his works. A few have illustrations by Fred T. Jane. However, his stories are a bit of a chore to get thru. He was disdainful of Americans so its no wonder that works are little known here.

There really is a wealth of stuff that has been completely forgotten.
 
George Griffith, author of Angel of the Revolution among others, is pretty prolific and I've read two of his works. A few have illustrations by Fred T. Jane. However, his stories are a bit of a chore to get thru. He was disdainful of Americans so its no wonder that works are little known here.

He was the one who wrote The Raid of Le Vengeur. Great story. Those lousy, sneaking Frogs get their comeuppance by good old British ingenuity! ;)
 

bard32

Banned
Early Science Fiction is going to become rather important in one of my timelines, which is unfortunate given that my knowledge begins and ends with War of the Worlds and Jules Verne. It picks up again a little in the thirties and on, but that's only barely of use.

What I need is a comprehension of proto- and early-SciFi from the late 1800s through World War Two, especially by European authors, and especially from the window 1890-1920.

Now I somewhat doubt that anyone has piles of old Science Fiction they're dying to send me, and I will be mostly digging around on my own, but I'd appreciate recommendations of books, authors, or websites to investigate.

All right, let's consider the source here. That being H.G. Wells. Herbert wrote such classics as The Time Machine, War of the Worlds,
and The Land Leviathans. Let's take a look at the last two: War of the Worlds deals with chemical warfare against invading Martians. The Land Leviathans was about tanks.
 
Actually Lovecraft did right a science fiction story the walls of eris I think it was called. Admittedly I think they knew even at the time that Venus wasn't tropical.
 

bard32

Banned
Actually Lovecraft did right a science fiction story the walls of eris I think it was called. Admittedly I think they knew even at the time that Venus wasn't tropical.

Lovecraft was from New England. I think he was born in Connecticut. Back in
the 1980s, somebody wrote a novel about him called Lovecraft's Book.
It was about a book Lovecraft supposedly wrote that was similar to Hitler's
Mein Kampf.
 
Actually Lovecraft did right a science fiction story the walls of eris I think it was called. Admittedly I think they knew even at the time that Venus wasn't tropical.

Nope; it was tropical right up until the end of the 50s.
 
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