Across the Zodiac

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.[1]

Across The Zodiac
AuthorPercy Greg
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish
GenreScience fiction
PublisherTrübner & Co
Publication date
1880
Media typePrint (Hardback)
PagesVol. 1: 302 pp.
Vol. 2: 294 pp.

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.

Alien language

The book contains what was probably the first alien language in any work of fiction.[2]

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.[3]

gollark: <@178552839721844736> I've heard different things. Fighting is a learned skill like anything else, and having actual practice through MMA and whatnot is almost certainly better than "I'll just poke them in a vulnerable part" or something.
gollark: So apparently the government is (mostly) closing all schools from Friday, and either cancelling or postponing the exams I was meant to do in twoish months (it's a bit unclear).
gollark: Unless people just panic-buy instantly when it's back in response to how much was panic-bought before.
gollark: Hopefully people will stop panic-buying eventually so there'll actually be pasta and whatnot available in stores nearby soon.
gollark: They were talking about 4K/60Hz, which would require some very impressive compression.

See also

References
  1. Everett Bleiler, The Checklist of Fantastic Literature, Chicago, Shasta Publishers, 1948; p. 132.
  2. Ekman, F: "The Martial Language of Percy Greg", Invented Languages Summer 2008, p. 11. Richard K. Harrison Archived 2008-09-08 at the Wayback Machine, 2008
  3. Jess Nevins, The Encyclopedia of Fantastic Victoriana, Austin, TX, Monkeybrain Books, 2005.


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