George Allan England (1877–1937)

Overall this is a pretty solid book, it has a very pulpy storyline but the writing is far better than you might expect from 1920.
The hero/super-villain of the story is an ex-army guy, who's somehow a millionaire and inventor extraordinaire. He also only likes to be referred to as 'The Master' (one of his many super-villain traits). Bored he decides to recruit some other ex-military types for an unknown venture. These are joined unexpectedly by the mysterious Captain Alden who wears a face show more mask to cover his disfigured continence.
Part one of the plan involves high treason against the United States, part two of the plan involves a military assault on Mecca.
This is an insane story and some might have a problem with the way muslims are depicted, however while a lot of the characters hate muslims the writer and his main character seem to really like the culture of the middle-east countries.
The Master is constantly spouting muslim sayings, he never says thank god but rather thanks Allah etc.
As i mentioned this is a pulp story-wise and it has some crazy pulp technology thrown in here and there. The characters you don't really get to know too well, but the not knowing is quite compelling.
In the end its a little longer than i would have liked and the descriptive writing while beautiful, can be a bit overdone but the story was compelling and insane which i liked. show less

Great literature stands the test of time. Well,The Afterglow written in 1913, is not a piece of great literature.It's so outdated it's almost laughable. I say almost laughable, because the dialogue almost drove me crazy. Virtually everything the main character said ends in an exclamation point and it makes the enitre story feel corny, phoney and totally over the top.

Great literature stands the test of time. Well,The Afterglow written in 1913, is not a piece of great literature.It's so outdated it's almost laughable. I say almost laughable, because the dialogue almost drove me crazy. Virtually everything the main character said ends in an exclamation point and it makes the enitre story feel corny, phoney and totally over the top.

The Empire in the Air sort of hearkens back to it spiritual predecessor, Flatland. However, instead of sending two-dimensional geometric shapes into the third dimension to expand their understanding of the universe, England sends a three-dimensional jet pilot into the fourth dimension to help battle an invasion of fourth dimension green sphere things.

England's writing is similar to that of his contemporaries, that is, the sci-fi writers of the early 1900s, and if you're familiar with such show more writings, his work will seem familiar as well. Likewise, if you're unfamiliar with things written during that time, you'll find this book to be just as campy as an early 1950's film adaptation of it would seem.

As far as attempting to go new places with sci-fi, England succeeds, but through the lens of today, it falls short of truly remarkable. show less