Across the Zodiac
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| Across The Zodiac | |
| Author | Percy Greg |
|---|---|
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Science fiction novel |
| Publisher | Truebner |
| Publication date | 1880 |
| Media type | print (hardback) |
| Pages | Vol. 1: 302 pp. Vol. 2: 294 pp. |
| ISBN | N/A |
Across the Zodiac: The Story of a Wrecked Record (1880) is a science fiction novel by Percy Greg, who has been credited as an originator of the Sword and planet sub-genre of science fiction.[1] The book details the creation and use of apergy, a form of anti-gravitational energy, and details a flight to Mars in 1830. The planet is inhabited by diminutive beings; they are convinced that life does not exist elsewhere than on their world, and refuse to believe that the unnamed narrator is actually from Earth. (They think he's an unusually tall Martian from some remote place on their planet.)
The book's narrator names his spacecraft the "Astronaut."
Curiously, the same title was used for a later, similar book — Edwin Pallander's Across the Zodiac: A Story of Adventure (1896). Pallander copied some elements of Greg's plot; in his book, gravity is negated by a gyroscope.[2]
Greg's book had a clear influence on another science fiction novel of its era, The Great Romance.
[edit] References
- ^ Everett Bleiler, The Checklist of Fantastic Literature, Chicago, Shasta Publishers, 1948; p. 132.
- ^ Jess Nevins, The Encyclopedia of Fantastic Victoriana, Austin, TX, Monkeybrain Books, 2005.
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- Across the Planet at Internet Archive (scanned books original editions color illustrated)
- Across the Zodiac at Project Gutenberg (plain text and HTML)
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