All The Rage: steam sci-fi
In the current (October 2007) issue of the online magazine All The Rage you will find, among other fascinating things, an article of mine about Victorian and Edwardian science fiction: ‘Steam sci-fi: how the Victorians invented the future’. An enticing excerpt that will leave you breathless with excitement and saying I simply must read on follows.
The French had a particular genius for these imaginative but uncanny visions of futurity. In his Le Vingtième Siècle of 1882, Albert Robida (1848-1926) depicted the people of 1952 watching the news on television, catching flights from the central airship station built upon the towers of Notre Dame, having husband-and-wife arguments over the téléphonoscope, and taking pleasure cruises in submarines. In a nicely Gallic touch, he observes that if twentieth-century women are to ride upon flying machines their dresses will have to be shorter than those of their nineteenth-century predecessors.
I simply must read on, you say? Then here is a direct link to the issue containing the article (PDF).
Picture: Illustration from Albert Robida, Le Vingtième Siècle (1882). Author’s collection.
