Science Fiction roots -- a captivating and brilliant page-turner!

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	• Vril: the Power of the Coming Race Edward Bulwer-Lytton CreateSpace, 2008 - 108 pages average customer review:based on 9 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Startling and Provocative

From the very first pages Vril hooks and reels you in with its snappy narrative and provocative themes of "grrrl power" and other startling aspects of the vril-endowed subterranean super-race. For a Victorian novel it is astonishingly readable and will reward you with its thoughtful, far-ranging exploration of political and gender issues. Holds up surprisingly well.

fantastic

This book was better than I had imagined. It provides a wonderful model for harmonious living and is honest and kind in its assessment of how our civilization has gone awry.

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The Coming Race!

_Vril: The Power of the Coming Race_ by Victorian novelist Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton first published in 1871 is a fascinating and bizarre tale of a subterranean world. The novel begins as the narrator, an American, descends into a mine shaft where an accident occurs leaving him stranded in a subterranean realm. There he encounters a mysterious race, in possession of uncanny powers, the ability to fly, the control of automata, and the control of a mysterious force known as Vril. These are the Vril-ya, the civilized race, who constitute a utopian civilization beneath the surface of the Earth. Bulwer-Lytton spends much time expounding upon the culture, the language, the traits, and the religion of this underworld race, which may seek someday to rise to the surface of the Earth again from whence it came. This race has a culture and civilization quite distinct from that of the Victorian world in which Bulwer-Lytton and the narrator lived. There are two sexes, the Ana (or males) and the Gy-ei (or females), but their roles are somewhat reversed with the Gy-ei courting the Ana. In this respect Bulwer-Lytton sought to parody the female rights movement of his time and the ideas of philosophers such as John Stuart Mill. Also, the Ana believe themselves to be descended from frogs, or to be followed by frogs, parodying the ideas of Darwinian evolution. The society of the Ana is entirely aristocratic and free from passion, strife, crime, and war though these notions occur in their history books. The Ana look down upon the government of the many as Koom-Posh. This may reveal Bulwer-Lytton's aristocratic prejudices. In addition, the children of the society serve as guardians until they reach marriageable age. Bulwer-Lytton also discusses the language of the Vril-ya, where he owes a debt to Max Muller to whom he dedicated this novel. This language resembles the Indo-European tongues which were being studied at the time. While in the subterranean world, the narrator (who is referred to as a Tish by the Ana) witnesses the enormous power which the Ana yield through Vril. He watches as this power is used to destroy a reptilian monster who had made off with his friend at the beginning of the story. In addition, he learns much of their customs and society. He also witnesses a funeral in which the power of Vril again is used to incinerate a corpse. Eventually, a certain Gy named Zee becomes enamored of him. The Gy-ei are larger than the Ana and are especially learned. This relationship though is one that cannot be and forces the narrator to make an important decision. This tale is bizarre and offers a unique look into the utopian mindset of the Victorian era. The novels of Bulwer-Lytton came to have much influence on many later writers including such individuals as Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, the Russian seeress who plagiarized much from his stories. Subterranean worlds have came to be a source of fascination and were incorporated into many of the traditions of the ancient world and of the Nineteenth century.

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Comming Race is a Fun Read

The Coming Race is a great book on many levels. As a story it is well developed and is one of Bulwer-Lytton's best works of science fiction. Also from a historical aspect it is an interesting document to see how the Victorian mind saw the world and what was beyond their horizons. This book had an incredible impact upon the reading public upon its release in 1871 and its influence, as well as that of Lytton in general, is felt greatly in later works of early sci-fi. I especially feel the stylistic influence in Upton Sinclair's "Millennium" and while for a review this is neither here nor there, this is important in understanding the development of the genre.

The book opens up with the main character, an American, being invited into a mine exploration by friend. Within just a few pages of the most basic exposition the story begins. For this genre and being that the terranean characters matter little, jumping into the plot like this makes the reading fun. For a 19th century it reads very fast and before long the reader will be well acquainted with the ways of the vril-ya and "vril" - the power source of the coming race. It really is a fun read.

The only problem with this book is that while Lytton goes through an enormity of steps to describe the culture and idiosyncrasies of the vril-ya the book at times reads more like notes of an anthropologist than a literary novel. Of course this may be the intention and since it is such a quick and enjoyable read, we can forgive the author of this. If you are fan of Lord Lytton or a fan of early Sci-Fi this is a definite read. I also would recommend this book to anyone who like 19th century novels and think this should be included in more high school English literature classes because it does not fit the stereotype and would be a welcome break for many students. While we know quite well that this work is purely fantastical it is really enjoyable to see how the mind of the 19th century saw the possibility of worlds going on underground and it is fun to imagine and believe...

-- Ted Murena

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Science Fiction roots -- a captivating and brilliant page-turner!

In this 1871 work, Lytton presents the reader with an early science fiction tale about an American adventurer whom we come to know only as "Tish". The author wrote the story near the end of his own life in 1873; however, he exposes his protagonist to vignettes of technology and ethical concepts which would not actualize until the 20th Century!

At the outset of the story Tish accompanies an associate deep into the bowels of a mine, presumably somewhere in Europe. It is therein that the two enter a subterranean world. The associate is killed almost immediately by a "krek," a creature with, "...a vast and terrible head with open jaws and dull, ghastly, hungry eyes -- the head of the monstrous reptile resembling that of a crocodile or alligator, but infinitely larger than the largest creature of that kind I had ever beheld in my travels."

From this point to almost the end of the work Tish is exposed to, and made the dubious guest of, a highly advanced culture in terms of technology: the Vril-ya. They represent the futuristic, powerful faction of the larger underworld race which is referred to as the "Ana". The non-Vril-ya were regarded as barbarians by the Vril-ya and were kept on the fringes of the technologically superior Vril-ya regions, (a situation which I regard as symbolism of the Jewish People of Europe during this era).

The author presents the Vril-ya as having aspired to social and civil preeminence; however, the excellence of their political systems and their philosophies, while devoid of conflagration and dispute, were shrewdly left for the reader to appraise.

Vril-ya society, in a nutshell, was static. They had no desire for wealth since each person could have anything s/he wanted by way of "Vril". Their diet was pseudo-vegetarian, milk being their singular non-vegetarian indulgence. A lazy society by nature, they considered Democracy to be primitive and thus perceived to be found only in barbarous cultures. Their own form of government was classified as "benevolent autocracy," except that the benevolence extended neither to the non-Vril-ya subterranean who shared their geography nor to any other. The most significant cultural divergence from surface dwelling humans hinged upon the fact that Vril-ya women were not only larger than males, they were also the assertive and dominant gender in their society.

Lytton was quite clever in his approach to analogizing Vril-ya Society to contemporaneous European events and attitudes. The technique is reminiscent of a later work by a fellow Englishman, J.R.R. Tolkien, author of "the Hobbit" and "The Lord of the Rings". It's also clear that Lytton was brilliantly intuitive in regard to his vision of futuristic technology.

The work is quite provocative in this regard: Lytton leaves the fate of mankind as an open issue with his Hitchcockian conclusion. Hence, do the Vril-ya exemplify God's [first] "unsuccessful experiment" in creating mankind? We He nullify the power of Vril in the event that the Vril-ya and the surface dwellers come into conflict? Or do the Vril-ya represent God's success story... and will humankind thus be purged from the Earth's surface as part of a "Master plan"? The latter appears to be the author's rendition and interpretation of "The Revelation to John" (in "The Holy Bible").

This is a superb yarn and seizes upon much of the "Hollow Earth" to-do of the period. This terrific book is timeless literature, expressed in the sci-fi genre and is just as compelling today as the day it was originally published. My highest recommendation even for non-science fiction enthusiasts.

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reviews: page 1, 2

Regarded by many as Bulwer-Lytton's best novel, Vril: The Power of The Coming Race is a powerful novel that fired the imagination of readers starting in the 1870's. Among the earliest examples of what would become the genre of science fiction, among many authors it influenced H. G. Wells, Samuel Butler, and Edgar Rice Burroughs. The book tells the story of a young American adventurer who discovers a portal to an underground world at the bottom of a mine shaft. In this world lives a highly advanced race, with a dark secret. This Aelzina Books edition is not a difficult-to read photo-reproduction of an old book. Instead it is a completely new edition, professionally re-typeset from the original 1871 volume using a modern version of the classic Garamond typeface for easy readability. Aelzina Books also includes a short biography of the author as a preface to each book we publish.

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