A Journey in Other Worlds

A Journey in Other Worlds
Author John Jacob Astor IV
Illustrator Dan Beard
Country United States
Language English
Genre Science fiction Speculative fiction Utopian fiction
Publisher D. Appleton & Co.
Publication date
 1894
Media type Print (hardcover)
Pages 476 pp.

A Journey in Other Worlds: A Romance of the Future is a science fiction novel by John Jacob Astor IV, published in 1894.[1]

Overview

The book offers a fictional account of life in the year 2000. It contains abundant speculation about technological invention, including descriptions of a worldwide telephone network, solar power, air travel, space travel to the planets Saturn and Jupiter, and terraforming engineering projects — damming the Arctic Ocean, and adjusting the Earth's axial tilt (by the Terrestrial Axis Straightening Company).

In Astor's novel, the future United States is a multi-continental superpower. European nations have been taken over by socialist governments, which have sold most of their African colonies to the U.S.; and Canada, Mexico, and the countries of South America have requested annexation. Race conflict is a thing of the past, since the "dark elements" of the American hegemony have died out.

Space travel is achieved through apergy, an anti-gravitational energy force. Jupiter proves to be a jungle world, with flesh-eating plants, vampire bats, giant snakes and mastodons, and flying lizards. The Americans discover a wealth of exploitable resources: iron, silver, gold, lead, copper, coal, and oil.

Saturn, in contrast, is an ancient world of silent spirits. The spirit beings provide the explorers with foresight of their own deaths.

Other editions

A paperback edition of A Journey in Other Worlds was issued in 2003.[2]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Pfaelzer, Jean (1984). The Utopian Novel in America 1886–1896: The Politics of Form. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press. pp. 108–11. ISBN 0-8229-5413-3.
  2. ↑ Astor , John Jacob, IV (2003). A Journey in Other Worlds: A Romance of the Future. Lincoln, NE: Bison Frontiers of Imagination Series, Bison Books. ISBN 0-8032-5949-2.

External links

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