On the Brink of the World's End
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ON THE BRINK OF THE WORLD'S END
Seven French scientific romances by Raoul Bigot, Jacques-Antoine Dulaure, Charles Epheyre, Jules Hoche, Joseph Méry and Colonel Royet
adapted by Brian Stableford
cover by Yvan Villeneuve
I've calculated myself that a decline of forty-three degrees in the normal temperature of the globe would lead to the solidification of the oceans and transform the continents into vast deserts of ice. The result would be a kind of end of the world, abrupt and unexpected...
This is the thirteenth in a series of anthologies of exemplary texts in the evolution of the French genre of roman scientifique.
The seven stories collected here were published between 1784 and 1928. They include two remarkable tales about Future Paris, the first story to seize upon the potential of air balloons as imaginative devices, and an extraordinary pseudo-case study in magnetism by Nobel prize-winning physiologist Charles Richet (writing as "Charles Epheyre").
Also included are a novella about the "death" of iron and how it changed the fate of the Great War, mind-reading technology and how it can be used to solve crimes, and the eponymous 1928 novel by Colonel Royet, which explores in a colorful fashion how a mad scientist threatens the stability of the world.
Contents:
Introduction and Notes by Brian Stableford.
My Poor Uncle's Return: The Story of his Voyage to the Moon [Le Retour de mon pauvre oncle, ou Relation de son voyage dans la lune] by Jacques-Antoine Dulaure (1784)
Future Paris [Parisa futur] by Joseph Méry (1854)
Sister Marthe [Soeur Marthe] by Charles Epheyre (1889)
Future Paris [Paris futur] by Jules Hoche (1895)
The Iron that Died [Le Fer qui meurt] by Raoul Bigot (1918)
Nounlegos by Raoul Bigot (1919)
On the Brink of the World's End [A deux doigts de la fin du monde] by Colonel Royet (1928)