Early 20th century SF recommendations?

[AE35Unit]

The book Im reading, The Purple Cloud, is from 1901 and it got me wondering what other noteworthy SF there is out there from 1900-1920. Obviously there's H G Wells (I have an omnibus) and Verne but what other books/stories stand out from the early years of the 20th C.?

 

[dask]

SCIENCE FICTION BY GASLIGHT edited by Sam Moskowitz, an anthology of sf culled from general fiction magazines appearing in the late 19th through early 20th centuries has some truly great stuff in it.

 

[AE35Unit]

SCIENCE FICTION BY GASLIGHT edited by Sam Moskowitz, an anthology of sf culled from general fiction magazines appearing in the late 19th through early 20th centuries has some truly great stuff in it.

Thanks, added to wishlist!
But any novels from this era that really made you sit up and take notice?

 

[dask]

I have a couple that caught my interest though I haven't read them yet. DARKNESS AND DAWN (1912-13) by George Allan England and GULLIVER OF MARS (1905) by Edwin L. Arnold.

 

[AE35Unit]

Thanks Dask-downloaded

 

[iansales]

Garrett P Serviss wrote a couple around that time too.

 

[AE35Unit]

Garrett P Serviss wrote a couple around that time too.

Yea I have one of his now too- I believe he wrote what was often cited as a follow up to Wells' War of. The World, unless I'm thinking of another writer from that era.

 

[dask]

Serviss is hard to find. I not only do not have any of his books I've never seen one in all the years I've been book hunting.

 

[Extollager]

Arthur Conan Doyle's Professor Challenger stories: The Lost World, The Poison Belt (there are a couple of others that I don't recommend)

Rudyard Kipling's story "With the Night Mail"

William Hope Hodgson's The House on the Borderland might qualify; it's a sort of weird fantasy-with-sf-elements

Benson's Lord of the World is science fiction with a Roman Catholic apocalyptic theme; I thought it was good

 

[AE35Unit]

Arthur Conan Doyle's Professor Challenger stories: The Lost World, The Poison Belt (there are a couple of others that I don't recommend)

Yea i have those two, and have read The Lost World before-my brother is a big Conan Doyle fan so thats how I doscoivered those books.

Rudyard Kipling's story "With the Night Mail"

Hmm, I downloaded a couple of Kiplings stories, didnt realise he did SF too tho!

William Hope Hodgson's The House on the Borderland might qualify; it's a sort of weird fantasy-with-sf-elements

Yea I havbe that on my TBR pile

Benson's Lord of the World is science fiction with a Roman Catholic apocalyptic theme; I thought it was good

Hmmm will look into that one, thanks!

 

[dask]

Computer's been acting up for a while now, getting harder and harder to get online. Lately it's been taking me, on the average, ten-fifteen minutes, sometimes longer, to get connected. But I did it anyway, AE, just to let you know about Doyle's Professor Challenger only to find Extollager has beaten me to it. Tanj! Anyway, I found a book of Jack London's sf type stories at a booksale yesterday, called FANTASTIC TALES which might contain the kind of material you're looking for.

 

[hormone]

Here is a list of titles from that period based on the first appearance of a sci fi invention.

1900 Aerocar - first use of idea? (from The Abduction of Alexandra Seine by Fred C. Smale)
1901 Cavorite - antigravity metal (from The First Men in the Moon by H.G. Wells)
1901 Breathing Dresses (from A Honeymoon In Space by George Griffith)
1903 Joystick Controls w/Remote Display (from The Land Ironclads by H.G. Wells)
1909 The Book of the Machine (from The Machine Stops by E.M. Forster)
1909 Video Communicator (from The Machine Stops by E.M. Forster)
1909 The Machine - supplies every need (from The Machine Stops by E.M. Forster)
1909 Machine Apartment (from The Machine Stops by E.M. Forster)
1909 Telemedicine Apparatus - first known reference (from The Machine Stops by E.M. Forster)
1909 Cinematophote (Blue Optic Plate) - first reference to television (from The Machine Stops by E.M. Forster)
1909 Breed Humans For Machines (from The Machine Stops by E.M. Forster)
1910 Automaton Chessplayer - the first chess-playing computer (from Moxon's Master by Ambrose Bierce)
1911 Telautograph (from Ralph 124c 41 + by Hugo Gernsback)
1911 Electric Rifle - Tom Swift's weapon of choice (from Tom Swift and His Electric Rifle by Victor Appleton)
1911 Demagnitizing Ray (from The Lord of Labour by George Griffith)
1911 Language Rectifier - first reference to machine translation (from Ralph 124c 41 + by Hugo Gernsback)
1911 Actinoscope (from Ralph 124c 41 + by Hugo Gernsback)
1911 Telephot - early videophone (from Ralph 124c 41 + by Hugo Gernsback)
1911 Hypnobioscope (from Ralph 124c 41 + by Hugo Gernsback)
1911 Sub-Atlantic Tube - undersea tunnel (from Ralph 124c 41 + by Hugo Gernsback)
1911 Personalized News (from Ralph 124c 41 + by Hugo Gernsback)
1911 Tele-Motor-Coasters - power skates (from Ralph 124c 41 + by Hugo Gernsback)
1911 Detectophone - machine translation of language (from Ralph 124c 41 + by Hugo Gernsback)
1911 Steelonium - very early reference (from Ralph 124c 41 + by Hugo Gernsback)
1912 Automated Restaurant - food from robots (from A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs)
1914 Sunray Tank (from Warlord of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs)
1918 Magnetic Elevator - no watches allowed (from The Gods of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs)
1920 Robot - the origin of the term (from R.U.R. by Karel Capek)

The system will not let post the link but the site is Technovelgy.com

 

[AE35Unit]

Computer's been acting up for a while now, getting harder and harder to get online. Lately it's been taking me, on the average, ten-fifteen minutes, sometimes longer, to get connected. But I did it anyway, AE, just to let you know about Doyle's Professor Challenger only to find Extollager has beaten me to it. Tanj! Anyway, I found a book of Jack London's sf type stories at a booksale yesterday, called FANTASTIC TALES which might contain the kind of material you're looking for.

Yea London is a nice author to read- I've only read his dog stories so far but I have downloaded a couple of SF works-Iron Heel and Scarlet Plague.

 

[iansales]

Serviss is hard to find. I not only do not have any of his books I've never seen one in all the years I've been book hunting.

Not that difficult... Space Science Fiction by Apogee Books

 

[Extollager]

That Benson tale, Lord of the World, is available online from Project Gutenberg or Proj Gu of Australia.

I wish I could recommend H. Rider Haggard's When the World Shook, his most sfish novel, but I though it one of the poorer ones of the 20-odd books of his that I've read.

Has anyone read Forster's The Machine Stops? Was that any good?

Reviews at Amazon: some readers like Cummings' Girl in the Golden Atom.

 

[Pyan]

Rudyard Kipling's story "With the Night Mail"

And, even more so, As Easy As A.B.C.

Has anyone read Forster's The Machine Stops? Was that any good?

You can read that one for free too...

The Machine Stops

 

[dask]

Has anyone read Forster's The Machine Stops? Was that any good?

I remember liking it.

 

[Vertigo]

Serviss is hard to find. I not only do not have any of his books I've never seen one in all the years I've been book hunting.

I daresay you were after paper books Dask, but you can get all of his novels from Gutenberg.

 

[AE35Unit]

Yea I downloaded the Serviss book, will be reading soon!
That Machine Stops story sounds good, will read that later!

 

[dask]

I daresay you were after paper books Dask, but you can get all of his novels from Gutenberg.

Good to know. Thanks for the info.