Rastignac the Devil

RASTIGNAC THE DEVIL

BY

PHILIP JOSÉ FARMER

Copyright © 2017 Read Books Ltd.

This book is copyright and may not be

reproduced or copied in any way without

the express permission of the publisher in writing

Contents

An Introduction to the History of Science Fiction

I

II

III

IV

V

VI

VII

VIII

IX

X

XI

XII

An Introduction to the

History of Science Fiction

The origins of the literary genre of science fiction continue to be hotly debated. Some scholars cite recognisable themes as appearing in the first known work of recorded literature, the Epic of Gilgamesh, (2000 BCE). Science fiction writer, Pierre Versins (1923-2001), argues that this ancient Sumerian epic poem should be included in the genre due to how it deals with the subjects of human reason and the quest for immortality. It also contains a flood scene that can be seen as resembling apocalyptic science fiction. However, other experts in the field prefer to limit the genre’s scope to the period following the Scientific Revolution in the 17th century, claiming that it was only possible to write science fiction once certain major discoveries in astronomy, mathematics, and physics had been made. Wherever we decide to put the pin in the timeline, it is clear that many of the tropes of what is generally considered to be science fiction have sparked the imagination since the early days of literature.

One such theme is that of the space ship. A form of this kind of technology can be found in the Hindu epic poetry of India. In the Ramayana (5th to 4th century BCE) Amazing machines called Vimana travel into space, underwater, and even have advanced weaponry that can destroy cities. Time travel was also foreshadowed in such works as Mahabharatha (8th and 9th centuries BCE) in which a king travels to heaven and on his return finds that many ages have passed in his absence.

The Syrian-Greek writer Lucian (c. CE 125–after CE 180) uses the themes of space travel and alien races to act as mechanisms of satire in True History to make comment on the use of exaggeration within travel literature and debates. These themes are however mainly utilised for comic effect, and as Bryan Reardon, a translator of Lucian comments, it is an account of a fantastic journey – to the moon, the underworld, the belly of a whale, and so forth. It is not really science fiction, although it has sometimes been called that; there is no ‘science’ in it.

Some elements of the genre can also be identified within One Thousand and One Nights (Arabian Nights) (8th-10th century CE) where themes of cosmic travel and immortality appear. Combine this with first millennia tales from Japan, such as Nihongi (720 CE) in which a young fisherman visits an undersea kingdom, staying for three days, only to return home to find himself three hundred years in the future, and it is easy to see that many literary cultures developed themes of what could be called proto-science fiction.

In the 16th century humanist thinker Thomas More (1478-1535) wrote Utopia (1516) in which he describes a fictional island with a perfect society that he uses to espouse his views on political philosophy. This tale gave the name to the Utopia motif that became a theme in sci-fi writing and together with its antithesis, ‘dystopia’, is still used widely in the genre – most notably in George Orwell’s classic work Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949).

The 17th and 18th centuries brought with them the ‘Age of Reason’, and a new found interest in scientific discoveries spawned fiction that more closely resembles modern science fiction. Johannes Kepler’s Somnium (The Dream 1634) about a voyage to the moon, is a notable example of this, with influential figures such as Carl Sagan and Isaac Asimov citing it as the first true work in the genre. Other works from this era with recognisable tropes are Shakespeare’s The Tempest (1610-11) containing a prototype for the ‘mad scientist story’, Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels (1726) with its descriptions of alien cultures, and Louis-Sébastien Mercier’s L’An 2440 (1771) which gives a predictive account of life in the 25th century.

Some authors, such as Brian Aldiss (born 1925) in his book Billion Year Spree (1973), claim that Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein (1918) is actually the first seminal work to which the label SF can be logically attached. Although generally found under the heading ‘Gothic Horror’, its use of futuristic technology and its exploration of the human condition from an outsider’s viewpoint, find it blurring the lines between the genres.

The late 19th century saw the arrival of two undeniably classic authors of sci-fi, Jules Verne (1828-1905) and H. G. Wells (1866-1946). The former produced popular scientific romances such as Journey to the Centre of the Earth (1864) and Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (1869). These classic tales of adventure captured the public imagination and brought him great commercial success, making him what L. Sprague de Camp called the world’s first full-time science fiction novelist. As opposed to Verne’s romantic adventures, Wells tended to use the mechanisms of the genre to provide himself with tools for making social commentary and rarely delved into the hard science of the technology he created. For example, in his classic tale The Time Machine (1895) the technicalities of the machine itself are largely glossed over in favour of the didactic points on English society he intends to make. The difference between these two giants of the genre typifies a debate that continues to this day about how to strike the right balance between exciting story telling and a social message. This time period also found several other notable writers dipping into the genre, with authors such as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930), Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936), and Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860-1935), also making valuable contributions.

The early