Across the Zodiac
{{Short description|1880 novel by Percy Greg}}
{{Infobox book |
| name = Across The Zodiac
| image = Across the Zodiac.jpg
| caption = First editions
| author = Percy Greg
| country = United Kingdom
| language = English
| genre = Science fiction
| publisher = Trübner & Co
| release_date = 1880
| media_type = Print (Hardback)
| pages = Vol. 1: 302 pp.
Vol. 2: 294 pp.
}}
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 subgenre of science fiction.Everett Bleiler, The Checklist of Fantastic Literature, Chicago, Shasta Publishers, 1948; p. 132. It is the first science fiction novel set primarily on Mars.{{Cite book |last=Hotakainen |first=Markus |title=Mars: From Myth and Mystery to Recent Discoveries |date=2010 |publisher=Springer Science & Business Media |isbn=978-0-387-76508-2 |pages=204 |language=en |chapter=Little Green Persons |quote=The first science fiction novel situated on Mars is considered to be Percy Greg's Across the Zodiac: The Story of a Wrecked Record, published in 1880. |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sPs3S5TYOEMC&pg=PA204}} It contains the first documented use of the term "astronaut", here the name of a spacecraft.{{Cite book |last=Roberts |first=Adam |author-link=Adam Roberts (British writer) |title=The History of Science Fiction |date=2016 |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan |isbn=978-1-137-56957-8 |edition=2nd |series=Palgrave Histories of Literature |pages=156 |chapter=SF 1850–1900: Mobility and Mobilisation |doi=10.1057/978-1-137-56957-8_7 |oclc=956382503 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gq7LDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA156}}{{Cite book |last=Crossley |first=Robert |title=Imagining Mars: A Literary History |date=2011 |publisher=Wesleyan University Press |isbn=978-0-8195-6927-1 |pages=43 |language=en |chapter=Inventing a New Mars |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=v3TDEDfEPdEC&pg=PA43}}
Plot
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 is an unusually tall Martian from some remote place on their planet.)
The book's narrator names his spacecraft the Astronaut.
Novel concepts
The book contains what was probably the first alien language in any work of fiction.Ekman, F: "The Martial Language of Percy Greg", Invented Languages Summer 2008, p. 11. {{usurped|1=[https://web.archive.org/web/20080908113936/http://www.glossopoeia.org/ Richard K. Harrison]}}, 2008 His space ship design also featured a small garden, an early prediction of hydroponics.{{Cite book|last=Ash|first=Brian|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-SUYAAAAIAAJ&q=Visual+Encyclopedia+of+Science+Fiction|title=The Visual Encyclopedia of Science Fiction|date=1977|publisher=Harmony Books|isbn=978-0-517-53174-7|language=en}}{{Rp|69}}
Influence
The same title was used for a later, similar book—Across the Zodiac: A Story of Adventure (1896) by Edwin Pallander (1869–1952) (the pseudonym of UK biologist, botanist and author Lancelot Francis Sanderson Bayly). Pallander copied some elements of Greg's plot; in his book, gravity is negated by a gyroscope.Jess Nevins, The Encyclopedia of Fantastic Victoriana, Austin, TX, Monkeybrain Books, 2005.
See also
{{portal|Novels}}
References
{{Reflist}}
Further reading
- {{Cite book |last=Bailey |first=James Osler |author-link=J. O. Bailey |title=Pilgrims Through Space and Time: Trends and Patterns in Scientific and Utopian Fiction |date=1972 |publisher=Greenwood Press |isbn=978-0-8371-6323-9 |pages=67–69 |language=en |chapter=Chapter Four: To the Islands of the Blest: Scientific Fiction, 1871–1894—C. The Wonderful Journey—3. To Other Planets |orig-date=1947 |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/pilgrimsthroughs00nanc/page/66/mode/2up}}
- {{Cite book |last=Green |first=Roger Lancelyn |author-link=Roger Lancelyn Green |title=Into Other Worlds: Space-Flight in Fiction, from Lucian to Lewis |date=1975 |publisher=Arno Press |isbn=978-0-405-06329-9 |pages=107–111 |language=English |chapter=The Conquest of Mars |orig-date=1958 |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_0405063296/page/106/mode/2up}}
- {{Cite book |last=Guthke |first=Karl Siegfried |title=The Last Frontier: Imagining Other Worlds, from the Copernican Revolution to Modern Science Fiction |date=1990 |publisher=Cornell University Press |isbn=978-0-8014-1680-4 |location=Ithaca, New York |pages=372–375 |chapter=Novels at the Turn of the Century: The End of the World—the Future of Mankind |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/lastfrontierimag0000guth/page/372/mode/2up}}
External links
{{wikisource|Across the Zodiac: the Story of a Wrecked Record}}
- [https://archive.org/search.php?query=title%3AAcross%20the%20Zodiac%20AND%20mediatype%3Atexts Across the Zodiac] at Internet Archive (scanned books original editions color illustrated)
- {{Gutenberg|no=10165|name=Across the Zodiac}}
{{Authority control}}
Category:1880 science fiction novels
Category:British science fiction novels
Category:British adventure novels
Category:Space exploration novels
Category:Novels set in the 1830s
Category:Adventure novel stubs
{{1880s-sf-novel-stub}}