Louis Tracy (1863–1928)

One of many pieces of 1890s future-war fiction I've read, this one is among the worst (I don't think it even has characters as such) but also the most influential. Along with Angel of the Revolution, it pretty much set the standard for the genre's form in the 1890s. France and Germany go to war with the world; reluctant Britain just has to conquer the world in order to save it, allying itself with the United States. The U.S. and the U.K. might seem as though they're in opposition at times, show more but really they're united by blood, history, language, feeling, character, and destiny. Eventually even the Germans sign on board: they're good Saxons, after all. The Final War is racial in the extreme. The moral superiority of the Anglo-Saxons stems from their military superiority which stems from their technological superiority. Because an Englishman invents the electric rifle, Britain wins the global war and therefore assumes control over all. That's just survival of the fittest, which is Darwin, which is science, and you can't argue with science, can you? Also it's the Divine Will. So basically everyone in the world is cool with the British takeover, because, hey, they're evolutionarily superior, and at least they're not French or Russian. The success of races was from Greek to Roman to Saxon: the Greeks were the Age of Art, the Romans the Age of Law, and now it's the Age of Science.

Anyway, this is basically the distilled version of everything George Griffith ever wrote, but considerably less fun-- there are no air-ships, no sexy princesses, no exciting battle sequences, no sexual thrill of complete obliteration, just banal war narrative and racism.

The original cover (1896, Pearson) is pretty swank, though. Love that little embossed bomb smoking. show less

This book is in the public domain (it was published in 1906) and was recently posted to Project Gutenberg. It is interesting to read how some people attempted to connect psychic powers (even fictional ones) to technological and scientific changes of the time.

Unfortunately the plot itself is very predictable, the protagonist's disturbing behavior is morally unquestioned, and the writing is riddled with enough misogyny, racism, and antisemitism that it did not seem worth struggling through at show more many points.

Louis Tracy was a prolific author; hopefully his other books will be more entertaining if I encounter them. show less

Edwardian novel about a rescue of a large group of passengers from a shipwreck and their survival on the titular lighthouse (where there are provisions for only three men), off the coast of Cornwall, for a period of several days of bad weather during which rescue cannot reach them. This is quite well written and atmospheric, though the characters are stereotypes by modern standards. There are the usual tropes of novels of the time, extreme coincidences, lost relatives, lost fortunes and show more commoners who turn out to be aristocrats. A nice, undemanding read. show less

Mortimer Fenley is shot dead on the steps of his home, The Towers. But how and why. The eldest son calls in Scotland Yard to investigate.
An entertaining mystery