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. Out beyond Neptune, the voyagers discover the icy world Cassandra, home to the souls of unworthy Earthlings.

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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