# Victorian Sci-Fi **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 21, 2002, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/victorian-sci-fi/129000 "2002-09-21T16:45:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Legomancer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/779978/32.png) [@Legomancer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Legomancer)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2002, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/victorian-sci-fi/129000/1 "2002-09-21T16:45:01Z")
It occurred to me a while back that, while I like the so-called Steampunk genre, I’d never read any of the primary texts from it, just stuff ripping it off. I love Victorian sci-fi trappings, but had never read the actual books. So, thanks to the magic of Dover Thrift Editions, I’ve been plowing through these and having a ball. I love 'em. They’re great fun. I love the elevated language, the graspings at actual science. I love the idea of people walking around on the moon in vests and top hats. They’re great stories and a lot of fun. So far I’ve read: The Invisible Man (H. G. Wells) Around the World in 80 Days (Jules Verne) First Men in the Moon (Wells) The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (R. L. Stevenson) War of the Worlds (Wells) The Lost World (Arthur Conan Doyle) Island of Dr. Moreau (Wells) 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (Verne) and I’m currently on A Princess of Mars (Edgar Rice Burroughs). In My stack to read are still Journey to the Center of the Earth (Verne), Dracula (Bram Stoker), Frankenstein (Mary Shelley), a Cthulhu collection (H. P. Lovecraft), and The Time Machine (Wells). (I’ve expanded a little bit beyond Victoriana, as you can see.) I still need to get From the Earth to the Moon and The Mysterious Island (Verne). Since, with Burroughs, I’ve gone into pulp adventures as well, I also would like to get some Doc Savage and Tarzan. And whatever I can find for the character of Alain Quatermass. It’s great fun, and I welcome any other suggestions. I had read Sherlock Holmes before (several times) and always enjoy them. (Yeah, I know that’s not sci-fi.) As for the modern stuff, Alan Moore’s wonderful mini-series, The League of Extraodrinary Gentlemen was a big tip off on stuff to read. This is all, in theory, source material for a role-playing game I’d like to run based on the Feng Shui system called “Steam-Fu”. So anyway, just wanted to do a little shout out to all my Victorian homies. Even Verne, who came up with possibly the worst ending to a book since Huck Finn. I’ll pour a 40 of Absinthe on the curb for all y’all. Word, old chaps, word. ---
**Author:** ![partly\_warmer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/bc8723/32.png) [@partly\_warmer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/partly_warmer)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2002, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/victorian-sci-fi/129000/2 "2002-09-21T17:42:54Z")
I recommend “The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction” to help you make selections. Well-researched, informative, impartial. I never open it without finding several interesting things. For the second time today I’ll recommend Project Gutenberg, which has several of Verne’s works, including “The Mysterious Island”. One great thing about Gutenberg is that someone liked a book so much they were willing to transcribe the whole thing without being paid! So I’ve noticed that real clunkers tend to be absent. [http://promo.net/pg/history.html](http://promo.net/pg/history.html) ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2002, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/victorian-sci-fi/129000/3 "2002-09-21T18:10:30Z")
I presume you mean “Allan Quatermain,” not “Alain Quatermass.” ---
**Author:** ![Green\_Bean](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/green_bean/32/1760_2.png) [@Green\_Bean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Green_Bean)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2002, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/victorian-sci-fi/129000/4 "2002-09-22T00:49:37Z")
You must read _Looking Backward, 2000-1887_ by Edward Bellamy! A guy falls asleep in 1887 and wakes in the year 2000 to find a socialist utopia. A great little read. ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2002, 1:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/victorian-sci-fi/129000/5 "2002-09-22T01:07:14Z")
Check out the sequels to _The Lost World_ , also by Doyle: [ul] [li]_The Poison Belt[/li][li]The Land Of Mist[/li][li]The Disintegration Machine[/li][li]When The World Screamed_[/li][/ul] Also, try _Sherlock Holmes’ War Of The Worlds_. Stars Holmes, Watson, & Professor Challenger. Finally, _War Of The Worlds: Global Dispatches_ is well worth your time. Enjoy! ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2002, 3:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/victorian-sci-fi/129000/6 "2002-09-22T03:02:49Z")
> [@](#): > > Even Verne, who came up with possibly the worst ending to a book since Huck Finn. To which Verne book are you referring? I’ve read all the ones on your list, and I didn’t think that any of them ended particularly badly. By the way, I think that you’re thinking of Tom Sawyer, not Huck Finn. Huck had a fairly plausible ending, I thought, but the ending of Tom came perilously close to ruining all the main characters. ---
**Author:** ![Legomancer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/779978/32.png) [@Legomancer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Legomancer)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2002, 4:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/victorian-sci-fi/129000/7 "2002-09-22T04:23:39Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Chronos \* > \*\*To which Verne book are you referring? I’ve read all the ones on your list, and I didn’t think that any of them ended particularly badly. > > By the way, I think that you’re thinking of Tom Sawyer, not Huck Finn. Huck had a fairly plausible ending, I thought, but the ending of Tom came perilously close to ruining all the main characters. \*\* The Verne book I’m talking about is 20,000 Leagues. “Oh no! A whirlpool!” [scene missing] “Whew! Somehow we survived! I don’t know if Captian Nemo is dead. THE END!” Huh? And no, it’s Huck I’m talking about. The end sequence with Tom Sawyer’s entrance and the rescue of Jim is notorious for putting a damp squib on a great book. ---
**Author:** ![HPL](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3da27b/32.png) [@HPL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HPL)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2002, 6:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/victorian-sci-fi/129000/8 "2002-09-22T06:44:41Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Legomancer \* > \*\* > > The Verne book I’m talking about is 20,000 Leagues. > > “Oh no! A whirlpool!” > [scene missing] > “Whew! Somehow we survived! I don’t know if Captian Nemo is dead. THE END!” > > \*\* I just went back and looked at the end. Apparently nemo had been mortally wounded and wanted to take take the ship with him. He sails north to the Norwegian Maelstrom and the three heros surivive by abandoning ship at the last moment. Hell, I’m still trying to figure out mysterious island. It takes place before 20,000 leagues (during the civil war), but he dies during the book and everyone seems to know who he is, IIRC. ---
**Author:** ![Coriolanus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/coriolanus/32/18769_2.png) [@Coriolanus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Coriolanus)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2002, 7:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/victorian-sci-fi/129000/9 "2002-09-22T07:07:43Z")
This thread was perched under Chronos’ [Resolved: The Holodeck was _not_ overused](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=136162) and I was compelled to remark on the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode(s) Elementary, Dear Data 12/03/88 – Stardate: 42286.3 SOS Rating: 7.1 – Tim Lynch’s Rating: none In the guise of Sherlock Holmes, Data is faced with solving a holodeck mystery that could mean life or death for Dr. Pulaski. Ship in a Bottle 01/23/93 – Stardate: 46424.1 SOS Rating: 8.1 – Tim Lynch’s Rating: 10.0 While running a diagnostic check on the holodeck, Barclay accidentally calls up the image of Sherlock Holmes’s archrival, Moriarity, who has long been abandoned in the holodeck memory and now proceeds to walk right out of the holodeck. [http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/3098/tng-06.htm](http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/3098/tng-06.htm) ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2002, 7:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/victorian-sci-fi/129000/10 "2002-09-22T07:25:44Z")
I love Verne – 've got an entire bookshelf devoted to him. Most of his stuff has been translated into English, but recently it’s been hard to find – th guy wrote about 70 books or so, and most of them aren’t well known. Interestingly, there are little-known sequels to some of them. **From th Earth to th Moon** has as its sequel \*\* Around the Moon\*\*, but few people know hat this book had its oewn sequel, **The Purchase of th North Pole**. **20,000 Leagues Under the Sea** had **The mysterious Island** as a sequel, and there is a sequel yet to that – **The cHildren of Captain Grant** (AKA **In Search of the Castaways** ) All three of these last mentioned have been filmed (two by Disney!), so you could have a Verne film marathon of connected stories. In the 1960s Ace books published lot of translations of Verne, so scour the used book shops for them (and not just the “Fitzroy” editions – they also brought out **Off on a Comet** and **The Purchase of the North Pole** at that time). About the same time, smeone reprinted all of his works in english editions in hardcover. If you can find them, Walter James Millr’s Anotated edition of **20,000 Leagues Under the Sea** and **From the Earth to th Moon** are great – you learn how the turn-of-the-century translators butchered Verne’s work, cutting out up to a third of his material and mistranslating the rest (!) Lovecraft is great, but it’s stretching things to call him “Victorian”. I second **The Encyclopedia of Scince Fiction** as a guide, but also have a look at Sam Moskowitz’ **Explorers of the Infinite** – a good guide to early SF. Who would’ve thought that Edard Everett Hale (who wrote “The Man ithout a Country”) wrote the first novel about an artificial satellite ( **The Brick Moon** )? ---
**Author:** ![Tars\_Tarkas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Tars\_Tarkas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tars_Tarkas)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2002, 7:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/victorian-sci-fi/129000/11 "2002-09-22T07:48:31Z")
> [@](#): > > I’m currently on A Princess of Mars (Edgar Rice Burroughs). Good Book! ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2002, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/victorian-sci-fi/129000/12 "2002-09-22T18:08:30Z")
Try some more of H.G.Wells. In addition to the “TIME MACHINE” try reading “MEN LIKE GODS”, and another obscure one-“THE ONE-EYED KING”. Wells is surely underrated, and his sci-fi is interesting because he wrote at the end of the Victorian era, when many of the things that Jules Verne wrote about were becoming reality. ---
**Author:** ![detop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bcef8e/32.png) [@detop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/detop)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2002, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/victorian-sci-fi/129000/13 "2002-09-22T20:08:55Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Bosda Di’Chi of Tricor \* > \*\*Check out the sequels to _The Lost World_ , also by Doyle: > > [ul] > [li]_The Poison Belt[/li][li]The Land Of Mist[/li][li]The Disintegration Machine[/li][li]When The World Screamed_[/li][/ul] \*\* (underlining mine) I would skip that one. It was written during Doyle’s Spiritualism period. In other words, it is the literary equivalent of a John Edwards show. > [@](#): > > \*\*Also, try _Sherlock Holmes’ War Of The Worlds_. Stars Holmes, Watson, & Professor Challenger. > > Finally, _War Of The Worlds: Global Dispatches_ is well worth your time. > > Enjoy! \*\* Although written by modern authors. If you are still interested, you should add Christophe Priest’s _The Space Machine_, a mix of Wells’ _The Time Machine_ and _War of the Worlds_. For another book of the period, you might try to find Bulwer-Lytton’s (of _It was a dark and stormy night…_ fame) _The Race to Come_ about an underground civilization. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2002, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/victorian-sci-fi/129000/14 "2002-09-22T23:08:51Z")
ralph 124c writes: \> Wells is surely underrated . . . On what planet is Wells underrated? He’s always mentioned as one of the two most important writers of science fiction in the period before 1926 (when it got identified and named as a separate genre). I know of the following pastiches of either _The Time Machine_ or _The War of the Worlds_: J. M. Dillard _War of the Worlds: The Resurrection_ Christopher Priest _The Space Machine_ George H. Smith _The Second War of the Worlds_ George Pal and Joe Morham _Time Machine II_ K. W. Jeter _Morlock Night_ Egon Friedell _The Return of the Time Machine_ Stephen Baxter _The Time Ships_ Ronald Wright _A Scientific Romance_ Manly W. Wellman and Wade Wellman _Sherlock Holmes’s War of the World_ CalMeacham writes: \> Lovecraft is great, but it’s stretching things to call \> him “Victorian”. For that matter, only Verne, Bulwer-Lytton, Stevenson, and Bellamy among the people mentioned in this thread are clearly Victorian. Shelley wrote before Victoria became queen. Wells, Stoker, and Doyle wrote at the end of the Victorian period, but their careers continued well into the twentieth century. Burroughs and Lovecraft didn’t even start writing until Queen Victoria had been dead for over a decade. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2002, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/victorian-sci-fi/129000/15 "2002-09-23T00:35:06Z")
Eggs, Tars. Dejan Thoris (sp) and the other Martians were _hatched_. So, how did Carter…well, if there isn’t…what… Never mind. Working on Gods of Mars at the moment. ---
**Author:** ![Tars\_Tarkas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Tars\_Tarkas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tars_Tarkas)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2002, 7:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/victorian-sci-fi/129000/16 "2002-09-23T07:20:33Z")
Well, you gotta fertilize the egg somehow… ---
**Author:** ![HPL](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3da27b/32.png) [@HPL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HPL)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2002, 10:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/victorian-sci-fi/129000/17 "2002-09-23T10:08:32Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by CalMeacham \* > \*\*Lovecraft is great, but it’s stretching things to call him “Victorian”. > > \*\* Not literally, but his style was somewhat Victorian (or at least that was his intent). He felt he was born 100 years too late. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_Wright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/848f3c/32.png) [@Steve\_Wright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_Wright)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2002, 10:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/victorian-sci-fi/129000/18 "2002-09-23T10:38:42Z")
You might want to check out more of the lesser-known writers of this period… some of the stuff is pretty much unobtainable, but, on the other hand, some of it is downloadable on the web. Brian Stableford’s article _Scientific Romance in Britain 1890-1950_ (published in _Vector_ 130, 1986) is a good jumping off point… … can’t find it online. Can’t find _anything_ online; all my favourite web addresses have vanished from my brain. I blame lack of caffeine… ---
**Author:** ![Baldwin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baldwin/32/7264_2.png) [@Baldwin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baldwin)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2002, 12:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/victorian-sci-fi/129000/19 "2002-09-23T12:59:24Z")
> [@](#): > > Also, try Sherlock Holmes’ War Of The Worlds. Stars Holmes, Watson, & Professor Challenger. This is a recent (1970’s) pastiche by Manley Wade Wellman; very enjoyable. (Holmes has also been put together with Dracula and with Dr. Jeckyll by modern writers; don’t know if he’s ever been set upon the Invisible Man.) I remember a great anthology of 19th century short stories called _Science Fiction by Gaslight_, edited by Sam Moskowitz. Fun stuff. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2002, 1:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/victorian-sci-fi/129000/20 "2002-09-23T13:13:54Z")
> [@](#): > > CalMeacham writes: > > \> Lovecraft is great, but it’s stretching things to call > \> him “Victorian”. > > For that matter, only Verne, Bulwer-Lytton, Stevenson, and Bellamy among the people mentioned in this thread are clearly Victorian. Shelley wrote before Victoria became queen. Wells, Stoker, and Doyle wrote at the end of the Victorian period, but their careers continued well into the twentieth century. Burroughs and Lovecraft didn’t even start writing until Queen Victoria had been dead for over a decade. To say that Wells, Stoker, and Doyle weren’t Victorian because they continued wrirting after the death of the Queen is a most peculiar usage. Most folks would call someone whose successes came during the latter half of the nineteenth century in Britain “Victorian”, regardless of when they died or ceased working. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/victorian-sci-fi/129000.md?page=2)