Science Fiction: the Evolutionary Mythology of the Future: Volume Two: the Time Machine to Metropolis

By Thomas Lombardo

An in-depth history of science fiction, covering the years 1895 to 1930, from H. G. Wells and his novel The Time Machine to Thea von Harbou and Fritz Lang’s Metropolis. The book examines science fiction literature, art, cinema, and comics, and the impact of culture, philosophy, science, technology, and futures studies on the development of science fiction. Further, the book describes the influence of science fiction on human society and the evolution of future consciousness. Other key figures discussed include Méliès, Gernsback, Burroughs, Merritt, Huxley, and Hodgson.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Aug 26, 2021
• ISBN: 9781665533706

Thomas Lombardo

THOMAS LOMBARDO, PH.D. is the Director of the Center for Future Consciousness, Editor of Future Consciousness Insights, Professor Emeritus and Retired Faculty Chair of Psychology, Philosophy, and the Future at Rio Salado College, and former Director of The Wisdom Page. A world-recognized futurist, he is the author of ten books and an Awarded Fellow and Executive Board member of the World Futures Studies Federation.

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© 2021 Thomas Lombardo. All rights reserved.

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Published by AuthorHouse 08/19/2021

ISBN: 978-1-6655-3371-3 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6655-3370-6 (e)

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

PRAISE FOR SCIENCE FICTION: THE

EVOLUTIONARY MYTHOLOGY OF

THE FUTURE - VOLUME ONE

The book is tremendously well researched, based on an intimate knowledge of the history of mythology and philosophy and, last but not least, it breathes the huge enthusiasm of its author for science fiction.

Dr. Karlheinz Steinmüller, Science Fiction Author and Futurist, Winner of the Kurd Lasswitz Award

Tom Lombardo dives into some of the eternal questions of science fiction, its relationship with tomorrow, with the universe, and with the vastly more complex realm within each human brain and heart.

David Brin, Science Fiction Author of Startide Rising, The Uplift War, The Postman, and Existence

"Thomas Lombardo’s magisterial exploration of science fiction’s mythological dimension is meticulously researched but personal and accessible. I wish I’d had this to read when I began writing science fiction."

Karl Schroeder, Science Fiction Author of Lady of Mazes, Ventus, and Sun of Suns

A spectacular read! Informative. Engaging. Insightful. I learned so much from reading it. The book is full of revelations, and gave me a new way to think about Western Civilization.

Tim Ward, Author of Indestructible You and The Master Communicator’s Handbook

ADVANCED PRAISE FOR SCIENCE FICTION:

THE EVOLUTIONARY MYTHOLOGY

OF THE FUTURE - VOLUME TWO

Lombardo’s encyclopedic knowledge of science fiction is phenomenal. In the comprehensive second and third volumes of his series Science Fiction: The Evolutionary Mythology of the Future he explores the literary and sociological relevance of literally hundreds of works from this wide-ranging genre. Beginning with the prolific father of modern science fiction, H.G. Wells, Volume Two: The Time Machine to Metropolis takes us from the late nineteenth through the early twentieth century. Volume Three: Superman to Star Maker continues from there, exploring the popularization of the field, its themes, and its tropes. An extensive and sweeping reference series for readers of this exciting and thought-provoking field.

Richard Yonck, Association of Professional Futurists and Author of Heart of the Machine and Future Minds

In Lombardo’s second volume in this series on the history of science fiction he continues delivering breakthrough insights and stunning perspectives. Based on his basic assumption that human nature, psychologically and biologically, is not a constant, he guides us through the first 25 years of the 20th century. His presentations and reflections on H. G. Wells and Edgar Rice Burroughs are world-class. By relating these authors and many more to science and the field of futures research this volume not only is an original contribution to the history of science fiction, but much more it is a scientific inquiry itself, which expands our understanding of our visions of the future, both present and past. Again Lombardo has succeeded in creating a brilliant piece of work. For us who love science fiction, Lombardo’s excellent second volume together with the first one, should become a must read and obligatory."

Dr. Erik F. Øverland, President of the World Futures Studies Federation

In the first volume of his history of science fiction, Thomas Lombardo analyzed the concept scientifically and historically to reveal all its richness. He explored in-depth the close links between myth and science, and the desire to know and the refusal to see, all of which are embodied in science fiction stories. The next two volumes constitute a new reference work, not only for the study of science fiction, but also for the entire field of futures studies. Indeed, Lombardo definitively demonstrates what the scientific study of the future owes to science fiction. While technological progress feeds fiction, the expressions of dystopias and utopias serve as a safeguard. From superheroes to star makers, science fiction simply tells a narrative about humanity that has not yet happened. A huge gratitude to Tom Lombardo for sharing with us this deciphering of our fears and aspirations that influences the fabric of our future every day, especially in this time of great upheaval.

Fabienne Goux-Baudiment, Founding member of the French Society for Foresight and Former President of the World Futures Studies Federation

I am very grateful to Dr. Lombardo for this thorough survey of science fiction of the period between the Time Machine and Metropolis, much of which I had not been aware of. His generous breadth of vision encompasses both science fiction literature and the movies, art, and even comics of the period (such as Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers). This was a time of wonder and optimism as the scientific developments of the period drove cultural change and enhanced the cult of progress. Further, Lombardo’s investigation reaches beyond English language literature to the work of Eastern European and Russian authors, and thus further enhances its value, with landmark works such as We and stories by J.-H. Rosny Aîné covered in this volume.

I must extend my thanks to the author for shining a light on what I consider some of the lesser know gems of science fiction, such as The Night Land by William Hope Hodgson.

I offer appreciation to Lombardo for opening up a whole new universe of books to devour with his awesomely knowledgable volume two! I now have a much better understanding of how science fiction has interacted with surrounding culture and developing technologies over the decades covered in volume two. In many cases, it is the science fiction writers who are the first to see the social and cultural impacts of technological developments and are the ones best able to portray these shifts in the form of engaging stories, which are often more easily understood than the often academic and didactic pronouncements of classic futurists.

Timothy C. Mack, Esq., Former President World Future Society and Founder of AAI Foresight

The book magnificently recounts H.G.Wells’ works and recalls something that is critical today: Humanity will only change after a great tragedy. By reading this book one can delve into numerous utopias that criticize the conditions of today’s society and that promote solutions that today are of great value. The book contains a wide variety of works of fiction that allow us to reflect on emerging technologies and whether they could bring benefit or harm to humanity. The book also examines a series of dystopias dominated by totalitarian governments, which are of great use in today’s times, given the alarming number of populist governments worldwide. Lombardo’s book allows us to understand what the future could be like, based on the imagination of many authors.

The book also raises questions about the role of science fiction: Is it just to entertain, or does it also serve to educate and forecast about the future? Are there differences between science fiction and fantasy? Can science fiction only relate plausible facts, or can it go above and beyond to widen the imagination of human beings? The only way to find answers to these intriguing questions is to read through this impressive work.

Dr. Jean Paul Pinto

Laboratory of Imagination and Materialization of the Future, Quito-Ecuador

Lombardo strongly delivers in his second book on the history of science fiction by renewing his precise style based on an impeccable taxonomy of works and authors. His erudition has enabled him to create excellent expositions on the giants of the genre, from H.G.Wells to Edgar Rice Burroughs. Particularly vivid are the first two chapters on Wells, providing a deep analysis of his ideas, and with impeccable style his later chapters on cinema and popular culture covering Metropolis and Flash Gordon. Futurists, foresight consultants, and future researchers can benefit from Lombardo’s reflections on key contemporary topics, such as utopia and dystopia, which are some of the central issues in these professional and academic fields.

Marco Bevolo, PhD. Founder, Marco Bevolo Consulting, and former Director, Philips Design, Eindhoven, The Netherlands

This book is a thorough reference work for specialists and aficionados alike... With rigor and appreciation, Lombardo examines the seminal works of science fiction in their larger context, always placing his descriptions and commentary in the broader history of science fiction – what came before, what comes after – and the ongoing evolution of future consciousness.

Lombardo poses challenging questions for his readers, he reflects on them himself, and engages the reader in reflecting too. This is a form of thought-provoking, interactive action-research at its best. You come away richer after each chapter...The reader’s imagination is set free to soar in so many passages of this book.

Hank Kune, EDUCORE and the World Futures Studies Federation

CONTENTS

Dedication

Introduction

Chapter 1 H. G. Wells: Evolution and Science Fiction

The Big Picture

Early Biography and Emerging Philosophical Perspective

Thinking Out Evolution, Time, Ethics, and the Future of Humanity

The Archetypal Science Fiction of H. G. Wells

Chapter 2 H. G. Wells: Futurist and Utopian Thought

The Discovery of the Future

Utopian and Dystopian Science Fiction

The Ongoing Evolution of Futurist Thought

Chapter 3 The Early Twentieth Century

Disturbing the Peace: Revolutions and Oppositions

A Glowing Future: Art, Invention, and Méliès and the Cinema

A Transforming and Expanding Universe

Chapter 4 A Bright and Terrible New Century: A Cornucopia of Science Fiction I

Utopias, War, and Disaster - Space and Time Travel - Further Encounters with the Martians

The Evolution of Consciousness and Mind - The Wondrous and Terrifying Cosmos

Chapter 5 A Bright and Terrible New Century: A Cornucopia of Science Fiction II

Love and Survival - Technology and Spirit

Past and Future - Alternate Realities and Surrealistic Mysticism

Chapter 6 The Efflorescence of Imagination

The Fantastic Adventures of Edgar Rice Burroughs

Cummings, Wright, and the Phantasmagorias of Abraham Merritt

Chapter 7 Early Twentieth Century Dystopias and Utopias

The Iron Heel

The Messiah of the Cylinder

City of Endless Night

We

Brave New World

Herland

Chapter 8 Science Fiction Becomes Self-Conscious

The Amazing and the Wondrous: Gernsback and Paul

The Best of The Best of Amazing Stories

Chapter 9 Science Fiction Becomes Visible

The Emergence of Science Fiction Comics: Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon

The Cinema: Aelita, The Lost World, Woman in the Moon, and Metropolis

Chapter 10 Following Wells into The Night Land

Non-Fiction Bibliography

DEDICATION

To my fellow cosmic travelers: Debbie Aliya, Pouyan Bizeh, Debashis Chowdhury, Alan Chudnow, Leslie Combs, Howard Ehlers, Hank Kune, Cedar Leverett, Jeanne Lombardo, Tim Mack, Jean Paul Pinto, Alan Ross, Tery Spataro, and Rick Trowbridge

INTRODUCTION

The campfire creates a golden glow illuminating the ground and the nearby surrounding bushes and trees. Beyond this cozy sphere of glimmering radiance, it is pitch black. Out there in the mysterious beyond we can hear the sounds of insects chirping and animals calling out to each other. But what else is out there in the vast unfathomable reaches of space and time, beyond our little group, who are huddled together and warmed by the campfire in the forests of Connecticut in 1959?

I am kneeling in the middle of a circle of my fellow members of Boy Scout Troop 22 as they listen to me explain the image I am drawing with a stick in the dirt. I am enthusiastically expounding on the meaning of the strange shape sketched out on the ground. The top of the image is a big circle representing a head with a giant centered single eye and elongated pointed ears. The etched-in mouth and nose are proportionately very tiny, as is the outlined body below the diagramed head. But the fingers on the hands of this imagined being are very long and bone thin. With great energetic confidence, I explain that this image realistically depicts, based on modern scientific reasoning, how humans will look in the far distant future; we will be cyclops with big heads, big brains, long dexterous fingers, and tiny atrophied bodies.

I must have encountered these futuristic ideas someplace, or extrapolated from some book I had read, or movie I had seen; I no longer can recall. I do remember though some of my reasoning at the time: Our primitive ancestors had smaller brains; the human brain (and consequently the human head) has progressively grown larger as intelligence has become more important than physical strength; hence, the human head will get even bigger in the future. In modern times we are becoming increasingly dependent on our machines to do all our physical labor, and consequently our bodies will not need to be as big or strong in the future. Yet we will need extended, highly flexible fingers to efficiently operate all the buttons, knobs, and control switches on our advanced future technologies and gadgets. I have no recollection now why I thought our two eyes would merge into one—for it would dysfunctionally eliminate binocular vision—except that a single eye makes these hypothetical future humans look exceedingly spooky and strange, and that, to my twelve-year-old mind, was a good thing.

To the best of my memory this short talk I gave to my boy scout troop on the future evolution of humans was my first futurist, science fiction-like lecture. The setting for this eerie talk was ideal. In the dark night of the woods, enveloped in cosmic mystery with the glimmering distant stars overhead, my imagination was set free to sail in awe and wonder into the outer limits and bedazzling future possibilities of human existence. And cloistered together in the secure and comforting light of our campfire, with spooky noises emanating from the beyond, my boy scout friends were both unnerved and enthralled with my weird speculations on human evolution.

I was probably not aware at the time that a good part of the image of future humans I was describing in my campfire lecture derived from H. G. Wells’ The Man of the Year Million (1893/2005). Wells’ hypothetical vision presented in his essay was not the first attempt to imagine the future evolution of humanity, but his projection of an intellectual being with a big brain and frail body became highly influential in the next century. It is probable that whatever sources I drew my ideas from were informed directly or indirectly by Wells’ famous image. Wells had other ideas of future humans as well, most notably the Eloi and the Morlock of 800,000 AD in his novel The Time Machine (1895), but additionally in his books The Food of the Gods (1904), Men Like Gods (1923), and The Shape of Things to Come (1933). All these novels and visions of future humans are described in the coming chapters.

Although we may more strongly associate science fiction with aliens, advanced technologies, and outer space travel, an immensely important and pervasive theme throughout the history of science fiction has been speculations on the future evolution of humanity. As explained in the first volume of this history of science fiction (Lombardo, 2018), the theory of evolution has been repeatedly applied to hypothetical visions of the future of humanity, including biological, psychological, and social dimensions; techno-human fusions of flesh and machines (cyborgs); and trans-human technological replacements (robots) of the entire human body, brain, and even mind. Within this volume, as well as the next volume in this series, we will see a host of narrative examples of future humans, beginning with Wells, continuing with E. M. Foster’s The Machine Stops (1909), C. Fowler Wright’s The Amphibians (1924), and Francis Flagg’s The Machine Man of Ardathia (1927), and culminating in the 1930s in Doc Smith’s cyborg, psychic-empowered Lensmen and Olaf Stapledon’s panorama of successive future humans in Last and First Men running through eighteen different species two billion years into the future. Indeed, one species of Stapledon’s future humans has more than two eyes and another species are essentially just big brains, totally divorced from biological bodies and directly tethered to intricate technological appendages and mechanical support systems.

We can argue that the topic of future humans is inherently more unnerving than aliens from outer space, since profound transformations within ourselves (foreseen in the future) are more deeply disequilibrating at a psychological and personal level. Our sense of who and what we are is directly challenged in futurist images of humans. These dissonant images threaten and upset our sense of an intrinsic, homeostatic human identity. Although from a survival perspective this reaction may make sense, it is unrealistic and unscientific, since human nature, psychologically and biologically, is not a constant. We have evolved and changed in the past and in all probability, we will continue to do so—perhaps even more dramatically—in the future (Lombardo, 2009, 2014, 2017). It is essential to our very nature to transform. But into what? That is the threatening and yet fascinating question repeatedly addressed in science fiction.

Extraterrestrial aliens and future humans are not totally separate issues within science fiction. To various degrees, visions of aliens can be interpreted as psychological projections of ourselves, of our fears and our hopes regarding both our present and future nature. Alien monsters, for example, can be seen as monsters of the id (our primordial selves) or manifestations of the shadow (our repressed evil side) within the human unconscious (See Freud and Jung’s psychological theories in Hergenhahn and Olson, 2003). Just as the ancients populated the starry skies with human-like deities and characters (Lombardo, 2018), we populate our expanded, scientifically informed spatial universe with projections of ourselves in the form of aliens. As noted in the first volume, Wells’ vision of big-headed, frail-bodied future humans in 1893 served as a model for his super-advanced Martians in The War of the Worlds (1898). Along with future humans, in coming volumes we will find a host of imagined aliens with various human-like qualities, involving both god-like and devil-like extrapolations and projections of ourselves.

Examined in depth in this volume, Edgar Rice Burroughs, one of the most popular writers of fantasy and science fiction of all time, created an incredible assortment of aliens and strange beings in his Barsoom, Pellucidar, and Amtor novel series. Also reviewed in this volume, the equally influential and imaginative writer of fantastical fiction, Abraham Merritt, conjured up an array of astonishing creatures and characters, sometimes alien in origin, such as in the colossally inventive novel The Metal Monster (1920), and other times existing in subterranean and unknown lands, such as in The Moon Pool (1919) and The Face in the Abyss (1923). As a third example of outstanding creative imagination covered in this volume, the Belgian/French writer J.-H. Rosny Aîné envisioned wondrous and strange animate life forms, alien and otherwise, and at times endearing in nature, that stretched the boundaries of the scientific and metaphysical. As prime examples of alien invention, Doc Smith and Olaf Stapledon, who are covered in volume three, created an immense and diverse assortment of aliens, benevolent, evil, sane, and mad.

In a sense, all these numerous and diverse hypothetical beings from outer space and unknown realms emerged out of human dreams and nightmares. To what heights can we imagine the ascension of intelligence, beauty, and the good within our mysterious cosmos? To what depraved depths can we visualize the possibilities of perversity, ugliness, and evil lurking out there in the infinite night and the mystifying unknown? How bizarre, weird, and creative can we conceptualize either life or intelligence? Aliens and assorted creatures of the illimitable abyss define the mental possibility space—as far as the human mind can image it—of the multifarious pathways of evolution.

The borderland between the outer space aliens and the monsters of fantasy is fuzzy and filled with shades of gray. As nineteenth-century science fiction was often closely associated with the Gothic imagination (such as in Shelley, Grainville, and Poe), in the early twentieth century the Gothic dimensions of horror and madness (the kissing cousins of fear) were recurrent features strongly connected with science fiction, both in literature and eventually in the cinema. Writers such as Hodgson, Lovecraft, Merritt, and Clark Ashton Smith explored the ambiguous region where fantasy and science fiction blend, creating bizarre scenarios and hideous creatures of the dark that provoke horror in the human heart.

What is especially noteworthy is how their tales also frequently challenged our notions of reality, ascending into cosmic speculations on the deep and enigmatic nature of existence. The possibilities of existence can also be terrifying, as we will see in the chapter on Smith and Lovecraft in volume three titled Experiments in Consciousness and Reality.

At a more pedestrian level, science fiction cinema, especially when the talkies emerged in the 1930s, became closely associated with horror and horror fantasy, being populated with monsters and things that go bump in the night. In this volume and the next volume, I describe this emerging wave of cinematic horror within science fiction. Even into the 1950s and beyond, the strong resonance between gothic horror and fantasy and science fiction would continue in the movies. In a sense, aliens and gothic-inspired monsters are all of a kind, provoking fear of what might exist beyond the protected confines of our campfires, huddling places, and normal spheres of existence.

The existential tension between our basic anticipatory emotions of hope and fear, which permeates and colors most of our future consciousness, was a central theme of science fiction and philosophical thought examined in volume one of this series (Lombardo, 2018). Hope versus fear underlies the contrasting visions of Enlightenment versus Gothic-Romantic philosophies of the future in the nineteenth century. And just as we can be hopeful or fearful regarding future humans or strange aliens from outer space, we can have similar contrasting emotions regarding the future of human society as a whole. Pre-twentieth-century writings expressed both positive and negative attitudes toward the possibilities of future human society.

In the twentieth century, we find a further evolution of positive visions of future society, often connected with anticipated wondrous advances in science and technology. But during this same time we also find a plethora of darker images of future society, often provoked in the minds of writers by actual contemporary events, such as the Great War (World War I), the rise of authoritarian governments and political dictatorships, increased nationalistic competitiveness and militancy, and the ongoing social divide between the haves and have nots in modern times. All covered in this volume, fear of our social future was often interwoven with nihilism, depression, and despair in early twentieth-century classic dystopias, such as London’s The Iron Heel (1908), Zamyatin’s We (1920), and Hastings’ City of Endless Night (1921). Fritz Lang and Thea von Harbou’s cinematic masterpiece Metropolis (1927) synthesized many dystopian and utopian themes in a mythic-informed, ultra-spectacular multi-media experience. Wells combined hope, fear, and despair in various dramatic mixtures, also adding wars and catastrophes within his diverse array of utopian and dystopian writings, such as in A Modern Utopia (1905), The War in the Air (1908), The Sleeper Awakes (1899/1910), The World Set Free (1914), and The Shape of Things to Come (1933). Examined in the next volume (volume three), in his grandiose and epochal fashion, Stapledon worked many utopian and dystopian psycho-social themes into his Last and First Men (1930), presenting a highly complex and temporally expansive chronicle of the future (indeed futures) of human society and biologically altered humans. The dark and the light oscillate and compete and even mix together in the millions and billions of years to come.

New envisioned scientific discoveries and technological inventions were sources of both hope and wonder and horror and fear in early twentieth-century science fiction. Hugo Gernsback (who popularized the expression science fiction), for one, promoted the new gadget science fiction story in his pulp magazines, Amazing Stories and Wonder Stories, in the late 1920s and early 1930s. Indeed, Gernsback had an intellectual talent for concocting innovative and yet scientifically informed new technologies. In his novel Ralph 124C 41+: A Romance of the Year 2660 (1911), Gernsback predicts an astounding array of future technologies, many of which have since been developed. Gernsback believed in the promise of future science and technology making the human world a much better place. Also, even earlier in The Year 3000: A Dream (1897), Paolo Mantegazza imagines, on an equal scale, a huge array of future, scientifically inspired technologies, which have empowering and liberating effects on future human society. Doc Smith, writing in the early pulp magazines from the 1920s to the 1940s, both for Gernsback and other publications, excelled at imagining and describing novel scientific-sounding gadgets and technologies that gave humans amazing powers and capabilities. The dream of advanced scientific technologies that would create a wondrous brave new world was the dream of the Enlightenment and the modern Scientific Revolution (Lombardo, 2006a). For such writers, imagined future technologies engendered hope.

Yet, on the other side of the fence, the fearful apprehension of future technologies run amok was the nightmare of many other writers, including nineteenth-century anti-science Romanticists, such as Shelley in Frankenstein. Would science and machines be our doom? See for example The Machine Stops and The Messiah of the Cylinder, both examined in this volume. Perhaps engendering an even more intense fear was the possible assimilation of humans—bodily, mentally, and socially—into advanced technological realities. Metropolis and We express this deep apprehension that we will become machines or machine-like. For a large percentage of the population depicted in Metropolis, machines enslave humanity. Also, as clearly expressed in Metropolis, the rise of the robot and human robotic bodies, described in numerous other tales throughout the twentieth century, provoked great fear. Will the robots conquer us? Will we become robots? Is this for the better or for the worse? In the final analysis, it may not make much difference emotionally whether what emerges out of the darkness of the unknown is a scaly abomination, dripping with slime, with insect-eyes and undulating tentacles, or a metallic body with laser-beam optical lenses, an electronic halo, and glimmering pincer-like hands made out of aluminum and steel.

Visualization, as expressed in art, comics, and the movies, was an important evolving dimension of early twentieth-century science fiction that would amplify the psychosocial impact of narratives containing super-science and futurist technology, robots, aliens, and fantastical creatures. Cinematic science fiction, with its ever-developing array of special effects, would become especially influential as the century progressed. The movies brought greater realism and emotional-sensory effect to the science fiction experience. They presented dynamic, transformative visualization, transcending static art and sequential pictures in the comics. Special effects, which began with George Méliès at the tail end of the nineteenth century, steadily made the aliens and monsters more visually and emotionally bizarre and terrifying, the strange realms more imaginative and convincing, and the super-technologies envisioned more bedazzling. In science fiction cinema we see the narrative and all its strange elements in visual motion. And beginning in the 1930s, we became immersed in the sounds of tomorrow and fantastical realms as well.

This volume, which begins with the narrative horrors, great flights of imagination, and systematic futurist thinking of H. G. Wells, concludes with Lang and von Harbou’s spectacular silent movie Metropolis. In Metropolis, advanced technology, futurist architecture and design, robots and mad scientists, oppressive industry and dark cavernous settings, and extreme emotional displays (of madness, lust, grief, rage, and reverie) are all dynamically illuminated on the screen. Moreover, the movie weaves together dystopian and utopian themes, and in dramatic psychological visualizations explores the contrasting Romantic and Rationalist/Enlightenment philosophies of the preferable future.

In short, the evolution of the mythology of science fiction and its fantastical creations in the early decades of the twentieth century involved the addition of a new dimension to the word and the idea in the scintillating images of light and motion. We could now see possible futures with their various terrors and wonders, both at home and out there in the great beyond of space and time. Given these developments,, with its great power and subsequent influence, the film Metropolis makes for an appropriate conclusion to this volume.

So, in beginning this second volume, let us gather around the protection and warmth of our huddling places, with the expansive mysteries of space and time surrounding us in the great beyond—of future humans, giant brains, and aliens; of robots, mechanical men, and monsters spawned in realms transcending human comprehension; and of strange cities of glass, endless night, and towering structures that ascend miles into the sky. And taking up where we left off in volume one—the coming of the Martians and H.G. Wells—let us move into the first twenty-five years of twentieth-century science fiction and consider narrative journeys into the limitless potentialities of evolution (earthly, heavenly, and trans-dimensional) and the obscurity and intrigue of the unfathomable dark mysteries of space and time.

*     *     *

Having covered Prometheus to the Martians (circa 500 BCE to the 1890s) in the first volume of this book series (Lombardo, 2018), in this second volume of Science Fiction: The Evolutionary Mythology of the Future, I begin with H.G. Wells, the father of modern science fiction and his prolific outpouring of evolutionary, utopian, and futurist writings (both non-fiction and science fiction), that straddled the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

After Wells, in subsequent chapters, the following topics are examined in succession:

• Innovative ideas and futurist visions, inclusive of the arts and social-techno developments, and the overall pervasive acceleration of change and associated reactions, both optimistic and apprehensive, at the beginning of the twentieth century;

• The origin of science fiction cinema and special effects in the fantastical creations of George Méliès;

• The profound transformations in science, physics, cosmology, and rocketry in the early twentieth century that would inform and inspire science fiction and the scientific-techno vision of the universe;

• An overview of the bright and terrible new century, including an extended review of popular science fiction novels written in roughly the first two decades of the twentieth century, including the Darkness and Dawn trilogy, Distant Worlds, The Tunnel, and A Voyage to Arcturus;

• The classic cosmic horror novels of William Hope Hodgson;

• The fantastic and amazingly popular adventures of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Edgar Rice Burroughs;

• Straddling fantasy and science fiction, the psychedelic and brilliant tales of Abraham Merritt;

• The psycho-social, evolutionary, futurist narratives of C. Fowler Wright;

• Classic utopias and dystopias of the era, such as We, Herland, The Iron Heel, and City of Endless Night, as the human mind increasingly darkened after the Great War and looked toward the fearful social possibilities of the future;

• Hugo Gernsback, Richard Paul, and the genesis of science fiction pulp magazines, pop art, and science fiction fandom in the 1910s and 1920s;

• A review of a number early great tales published in Amazing Stories in the late 1920s, including The Thing from—Outside, The Coming of the Ice, and The Plague of the Living Dead;

• The beginnings of modern comics and super-heroes (highlighting Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers) in the 1920s and early 1930s;

• The development of science fiction cinema in the silent era, covering Aelita, The Lost World, Woman in the Moon, and ending with Fritz Lang and Thea von Harbou’s Metropolis, their masterpiece of archetypal visualization.

*     *     *

A note on the book series title Science Fiction: The Evolutionary Mythology of the Future:

In volume one (Lombardo, 2018) I explained my central thesis that science fiction is mythic in content, form, and purpose and that it presents contemporary "myths about the future for the future. Moreover, as I described, science fiction is evolutionary in several respects: It builds upon an ever-evolving heritage of ideas and themes; it is inspired and informed by the scientific theory of cosmic evolution; and it facilitates and guides the ongoing evolution of humanity, and especially the evolution of the human mind and our consciousness of the future—what I refer to as future consciousness" (Lombardo, 2017).

Although informed by contemporary science, technology, and philosophical thought—in essence a contemporary theory and understanding of reality—science fiction emerged from ancient mythology with its fantastic narratives of extraordinary journeys, wondrous sights, and exploits of super-powerful deities and supernatural beings. Science fiction shares with ancient myth a set of similar qualities, including: a big picture framework for understanding human life within the universe; a personally engaging narrative form; amazing stories that provoke awe; rituals and social-ethical norms regarding how to live and experience reality; a community of participants; and visions and icons of the fantastical and transcendent.

In this present and subsequent volumes, I continue to develop these central themes, providing further thoughts on the evolutionary mythology of science fiction. As with ancient myth, science fiction both reflects and influences human society and human thought, and I repeatedly examine, as I did in volume one, the connections between the evolution of science fiction and the evolution of human consciousness and human reality. Science fiction provides an ever-growing possibility space in which to mentally explore the ramifications of potential future developments in human existence, guiding and inspiring us along pathways of promise and hope and warning us of pathways of decline and destruction. As explained in volume one, science fiction is about the future of everything, not simply science and technology, and in this regard it has imaginative and practical relevance to all spheres of human life and the future. Science fiction, in fact, goes beyond the future into alternative (or alternate) realities and universes, further enlarging and informing the possibility space, or realm of imagination, of the human mind.

*     *     *

A note on the historical scope of volume two:

At the end of volume one, I stated that volume two in this historical series would cover H.G. Wells through Olaf Stapledon. In researching and writing about this rich and complex period in the history of science fiction, from roughly 1895 to the late 1930s, it became apparent that the envisioned volume two needed to be divided into two distinct volumes. This present volume (volume two) covers Wells (beginning in the late nineteenth century) through the iconic movie Metropolis (1926) and the emergence of science fiction comic super-heroes in the late 1920s. What is now volume three begins with the further evolution of comic super-heroes, notably the appearance and evolution of Superman, and then covering science fiction literature and cinema through most of the 1930s, finishing with Doc Smith’s colossal space operas and Olaf Stapledon’s novels of the evolution of the human mind, intelligence, and the universe into the far distant future. At the conclusion of volume two, there is an in-depth summary and analysis of Wells, and at the conclusion of volume three, there is an in-depth synthesis of science fiction for the period of 1895 to roughly the late 1930s, highlighting and comparing Wells, Smith, and Stapledon.

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A note on the Reference Bibliography:

I have included full citations in the bibliography for non-fictional sources cited in the text, as well as citations for anthologies referenced in this volume. I have not included citations for individual science fiction stories or novels, since there are usually numerous publishers for such works. Most novels can be ordered in local bookstores or online book sellars, and many shorter works cited can be found in short story collections for respective authors. The reader should consult the continually updated online Encyclopedia of Science Fiction for the various publication sources for novels and short stories. The Encyclopedia is one of the best sources of information on science fiction. I do though include lists in the text of important fictional and non-fictional works with publication dates for each author covered in the text in any depth. The reader can also find an extended Science Fiction Resource Bibliography in volume one (Lombardo, 2018), which identifies a broad sampling of text-based and web-based writings and resources about science fiction. Finally, I should mention as another great reference, especially valuable for early science fiction, Everett Bleiler’s Science Fiction: The Early Years (1990), which provides thousands of synopses of science fiction stories and novels from ancient times to 1930.

CHAPTER 1

H. G. Wells: Evolution

and Science Fiction

The Big Picture

"I make use of physics. He invents. I go to the moon in

a cannon-ball discharged from a cannon. Here there is

no invention. He goes to Mars in an airship, which he

constructs of a material which does away with the laws of

gravitation...Show me this metal. Let him produce it."

Jules Verne

"I am extravagantly obsessed with the thing that might be,

and impatient with the present."

H. G. Wells

In the first quote above Jules Verne is critiquing Wells’ imagined cavorite, a substance that does away with the laws of gravitation and took an airship to Mars. This airship actually traveled to the moon in The First Men in the Moon (1901), in which Wells first imagined such a ship that was capable of suspending the force of gravity. This imaginary material, though, was not an original idea with Wells since, as described in volume one, Percy Gregg, John Jacob Astor, and others had proposed similar notions in earlier space travel stories involving an anti-gravity force (APERGY) (Roberts, 2016). Still, Verne prided himself on grounding his writings in existing science and technology, whereas Wells, as he states in the second quote, wants to transcend the present and jump ahead to things more speculative and futuristic. Although a popular theoretical idea at the time, no one then, or since, has discovered or invented an anti-gravity substance for propelling rocket ships into outer space.

Yet this contrast of Verne and Wells is too black and white. There is no question that Verne was both technologically inventive and extrapolative in his novels, and at least in writings such as Paris in the Twentieth Century (1863/1994) and In the Twenty-ninth Century: The Day of an American Journalist in 2889 (1889), he did look ahead into the far-out technological, scientific, and social possibilities of the future. Moreover, Verne did not always align his own ideas with accepted scientific consensus or plausibility, as was the case in his Journey to the Center of the Earth and Off on a Comet. On the other hand, Wells was well educated in science, wrote extensively about contemporary science, and on a number of occasions engaged in prescient and scientifically plausible technological extrapolations, such as the armored tank, the atomic bomb, and aerial warfare. Wells did not always sail off into fanciful non-existent fabrications. Yet all in all, it was H. G. Wells that was pre-eminently and passionately forward-looking in his writings. Wells believed in a future excitedly different than the present, and he intensely desired to change the world in keeping with the futurist visions of his imagination. He developed a highly articulate and complex futurist framework of thought, informed by history, science, and philosophy, and he wanted to upset the status quo, disequilibrate the mind, and transcend the present to move into his envisioned, bedazzling future (Sherborne, 2010).

As a youth, my first encounters with science fiction were through Jules Verne and H. G. Wells. Verne transported me to a strange and wondrous world in Journey to the Center of the Earth (1864), but it was Wells that really stretched my consciousness of realities that went far beyond anything I had ever thought about before. In The Time Machine (1895), Wells took me out of the relative here and now in one colossal leap and conscious transcendence of millions of years into the future. Just as history extends millions, if not billions of years into the past, the future potentially extends outward just as far in the other direction, vast and distant and filled with mind-expanding possibilities. In The Time Machine, Wells introduced me to the deep time of the future, the transience of all things, and the first true glimmerings of the amazing depth and breadth of existence (Lombardo, 2018).

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I need freedom of mind.

H. G. Wells

Herbert George Wells (1866-1946) was a prolific writer of both fiction and non-fiction. Of special note, he was the intellectual and creative culmination of nineteenth-century writing and thinking on the future. He was not only the asymptote of science fiction writing during that century, spilling over and creating a bridge into the next century, he was also intensely involved in the scientific and philosophical study of the future and the social pragmatics of guiding humanity toward a positive future significantly transformed from the past. He is often referred to as the father of modern science fiction; equally, he can be seen as the father of modern futures studies (Wagar, 2004; Lombardo, 2006b). He was perhaps the paragon example of someone who attempted to integrate fictional and non-fictional approaches to the future, enriching, amplifying, and purposely evolving what I have referred to as holistic future consciousness (Lombardo, 2017). (For new readers to my writings, I define holistic future consciousness as the total integrated set of capacities, activities, and experiences of the human mind pertaining to the future; it includes our emotions, desires, visions and imaginations, thoughts and theories, plans and goals, values and stories we tell ourselves, and purposeful behaviors that have reference to the future.) Wells synthesized emotionally charged narrative, intellectual theory, naturalistic and human history, realistic sensory detail with compelling character personification, abstract logical thought, imaginative speculation, and ethical reasoning in his multi-faceted, holistic consciousness of the future. In essence, he integrated science and art in his futurist writings.

Wells, in fact, wrote more non-fiction books than fictional novels. His best-selling book was not science fiction but The Outline of History (1919), which sold two million copies. All told, he published roughly fifty novels (many of them non-science fiction) and seventy non-fiction books, plus hundreds of essays, articles, and short stories. His writings covered the nature of life, evolution, and time; love, romance, and sexual freedom; predictions and visions of the future and future war; fantastical inventions of the imagination and technological extrapolations; disaster and dystopian warnings about possible futures; complex utopian idealizations of preferable futures; deep history and social-political commentary on current affairs; economics, education, and psychology; and numerous novels on contemporary character and life challenges of the day. (See the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction for a comprehensive overview of Wells’ writings and the major topics and themes covered in his works; see H.G. Wells Bibliography: Wikipedia for a chronological list of books, essays, and stories.)

Specifically within the annals of science fiction, he created (or strongly contributed to) a number of key mythic and archetypal narratives, including time travel; alien invasion of the earth; the sudden destruction of human civilization by natural forces; the scientific-technological manipulation of life; future human evolution; the scientist obsessed with power, who is ultimately destroyed by his obsession; the scientific utopia that may or may not reveal itself to be a social dystopia; non-anthropomorphic alien civilization and unearthly alien ecology; various miraculous chemicals, including one that transforms humanity into a better species; the control and creation of physical matter through the human mind; alternative realities and histories; the human-initiated obliteration of the civilized world; and the rising of a new and better world out of the ashes of global conflagration and disaster (See Wells, 1966 and 1979 for excellent collections of many of his most noteworthy science fiction novels and short stories).

Wells not only wrote and published his ideas on the modern world and the possibilities, good and bad, of the future, but he was also a famous social activist, aggressively and doggedly attempting throughout his life to influence the actual course of events in the world (Wells, 1934; Sherborne, 2010). He was a hugely popular writer and highly influential public figure, conferring with Teddy Roosevelt, Lenin, Stalin, Churchill, and Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, among others, although his influence and public visibility waned during the last couple decades of his life. All in all, Wells was an excellent illustration of the interactive quality of science fiction and culture; his writings both reflected his thoughts and concerns about the world and, in numerous ways, had a strong impact back on the world, both during his lifetime and afterwards.

Early Biography and Emerging Philosophical Perspective

"This [very ordinary] brain of mine came into existence

and began to acquire reflexes and register impressions

in a needy shabby home in a little town..."

H.G. Wells

In examining the work of H.G. Wells, I adopt a rough chronological order in describing his writings and the development of his ideas, shifting back and forth at times between his non-fiction and science fiction publications. The distinction between his fiction and non-fiction writings is somewhat blurry, however, with each genre informing the other. Often books such as The World Set Free (1914) and The Shape of Things to Come (1933) contain a weaving together of both modes of exposition. I also include some important biographical information and highlight significant events in his life that impacted his thinking.

The amount of scholarship on Wells is immense. See, for example, the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction entry on Wells for a comprehensive list of scholarly and biographical studies on Wells, and H. G. Wells - Wikipedia for an extensive compilation of books and articles on him. Also see Wells’ Experiment in Autobiography, 1934, for a first-person chronicle of his life and writings—a narrative that explicitly has a personal agenda—and Michael Sherborne’s biography H. G. Wells: Another Kind of Life, 2010 for a more detached, although sympathetic, third-person account of Wells’ life and writings up to his death in 1946.

From his early youth, Wells struggled with a set of key issues, which form a set of general themes pertaining to his life and ideas:

• Religion versus Science: Wells was raised in a Christian home and subjected to orthodox religious instruction, especially by his devout mother. He increasingly found such religious ideas repugnant and intellectually flawed. He believed Western humanity was living a lie that needed to be jettisoned and replaced. Although there is some debate over how strongly and completely Wells rejected God and religion (Sherborne, 2010), from his early teenage years he appears to have come to believe that a more credible belief system was needed to guide humanity, one more liberating and empowering than the repressive and controlling mindset of Christianity. He saw this alternative in science, which for him, implied that humanity (rather than God) had control over its destiny. See volume one (Lombardo, 2018) for an examination of the importance of this kind of secular perspective in the emergence of modern science fiction.

• Obscurity and Mediocrity versus Recognition and Achievement: Wells was born a member of the lower class and yet, repelled by his family’s mundane expectations for him and in a powerful personal counter-reaction, he aspired to something much greater. He envisioned pursuing a life of books and making his mark as a leading thinker and intellectual. All of his life he endeavored to have a significant impact on the world, and in the final analysis, felt personally frustrated with achieving this goal.

• Mindlessness versus Reason: He saw himself as an intellectual rebel and a champion of science and reason struggling in a world of static tradition, primitive desires, militant aggressiveness, and thoughtless conformity. Aside from his early studies and identification with science, he also read philosophy and felt particularly resonant with Plato and The Republic, seeing Plato as a guide of reason toward a rational and thoughtful society.

• The Past versus the Future: Wells perceived contemporary society as tenaciously clutching old ways of thinking and living while the world was inexorably moving toward something different. He championed enlightened change against entrenched stasis. In this sense, he embodied the spirit of science fiction, of transcendence to the world beyond the hill (Panshin and Panshin, 1989) far from the insulated mentality of the village.

• Catastrophe versus Education: As a specific illustration of the tension of past versus future, having spent a number of his early adult years as a teacher, Wells saw contemporary education as deficient, haphazard, and locked into the past, and he believed that a new systematic educational system, organized around science, social coordination, and progress would be vastly superior, given the shape of things to come. He devoted himself to realizing his vision of a new educational curriculum. As he stated, Civilization is in a race between education and catastrophe.

• Art versus Logic: A tension that manifested itself especially later in his life was that of the dichotomy between the Romantic and the rational. Wells was drawn toward writing literary narratives with concrete characters, dramatic story lines, and sensory energy and detail versus abstract, non-fiction exposition and argument, frequently favoring the latter mode of writing in his utopian writings and later visions of the future. Although he most strongly identified with the latter mode of expression, as reflected in his mature futurist visions, it is the earlier Romantic, if not Dionysian, science fiction narratives that he is best remembered for.

• Cosmic Determinism versus Human Freedom: From his scientific background, Wells was acquainted with the idea that everything that happens in nature is a deterministic sequence of cause-effect relations governed by physical laws (Lombardo, 2006a). Only because Wells believed in some level of natural determinism did he think that, at least to some extent, the future could be predicted. Yet, if subscribed to in an absolute form, such a deterministic view would entail that the future (of both individual lives and the collective direction of humanity) was set and humans were powerless to alter the irrevocable deterministic flow of future events. Opposing absolute determinism, Wells believed in human choice, and he thought that we had the power to impact the future flow of events. If we can’t do anything to affect which potential future will come to pass, why create (which Wells repeatedly did) warnings of possible dystopian futures, or arguments and visions for utopian futures and calls to action?

• Individuality and the Collective Whole: Wells grew to believe that humanity was evolving toward a harmonious global unity, one of relative uniformity, peace, and cooperation, which would transcend our violent history of competition, antagonism, and war. But equally, he believed in the central value of individual freedom and the importance of the individual voice in critiquing the status quo and the dominant social system. Indeed, he saw himself as a paragon example of intellectual freedom and critical individuality. Wells believed in the ideal of a free society. Yet, how can we have an integrated social collective coupled with unique and often antagonistic critical voices?

• Natural versus Artificial (Moral-Cultural) Evolution: Wells saw everything through the eyes of evolution, including the history, present nature, and future possibilities of humankind. In this regard, he believed that humanity’s aggressive competitiveness was a naturally selected trait that had survival value in our history. But from Wells’ perspective, this trait is also a major destructive and counter-productive force, one that needs to be brought under control through a new force in evolution. He believed that such a second type of evolution, what he called artificial evolution had already emerged in humans, bringing with it the evolution of morality and culture. By Wells thinking, our future existence depends upon this second type of evolution to constrain the power of those human traits associated with our primordial biological evolution. At times Wells seems to believe this is an inevitable process—it is all part of evolution, and such a cooperative and moral system that brings humanity into a unified whole seems to be occurring across history. At other times, however, Wells senses a great urgency for the quick ascension to dominance of artificial (moral) evolution before humanity destroys itself as a consequence of its inherited disposition toward violence and aggression.

• Pessimism versus Optimism: Early in Wells’ career he wrote the majority of his most famous science fiction novels. The visions he created in these stories were generally dark, if not horrific. Coincident with writing these science fiction classics, Wells was formulating his thoughts regarding the deep problems of contemporary human society. Affected by two World Wars plus his own repeated frustrations in having a positive global impact on humanity, he expressed many pessimistic thoughts regarding the depressing nature and dismal possibilities of humanity.

Still, especially after 1900, Wells repeatedly put forth optimistic visions of the potential future of humanity. Indeed, as with many previous utopian writers (Lombardo, 2006b), it was his negative assessment of the current state of human affairs that stimulated the creation of social-philosophical solutions—his utopian visions—to world problems. He saw short-sightedness (lack of future consciousness), egocentric competitiveness, stubbornness/static entrenchment, and destructiveness as key problems to be rectified in the world. In this regard, he viewed himself as a champion of progressive optimism fighting the good fight against the forces of darkness and extinction. It is open to debate whether, toward the end of his life, he emotionally and intellectually abandoned his tenacious optimism for the future and surrendered to a resigned pessimism. What is ironical and enlightening in this context is that his early tales of destruction, collapse, and madness are best remembered today, while his more positive utopian visions for the future have significantly faded from our collective memory.

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As Wells states toward the beginning of his Autobiography, "The story will begin in perplexity and go on to a troubled and unsystematic awakening. It will culminate in the attainment of a clear sense of purpose, conviction that