The Engineer Von Satanas
THE ENGINEER VON SATANAS
by Albert Robida
adapted by Brian Stableford
cover by Step-han Martiniere
A deluge of fire... crushed under machines... Slaves in the mines or factories... and to finish, miraculous escapes under fire, through the networks of electrified wire...
US$ 24.95 /GBP 16.99
5x8 tpb, 344 pages
ISBN-13: 978-1-61227-425-6
After fifteen years of absence at the North Pole, a man rediscovers Europe on the verge of war in 1929.
Written in 1919, four years after World War I, The Engineer von Satanas is a classic of futuristic fiction, thirty years ahead of its time, and still relevant today because the threats it describes still exist and still serve as a significant motor of anxiety in contemporary science fiction.
The book also includes both the 1883 and 1887 versions of Robida's classic War in the 20th Century.
Albert Robida (1848-1926), was a remarkable and far-sighted prophet in anticipating future warfare and its consequences on human survivors. The most interesting fact about the shift between the 1887 and 1919 accounts is his realization, as a result of the actual war of 1914-18, that that he had been more accurate than he had supposed, and far more than he had wanted to suppose.
Also included are two additional stories illustrating other close-range reactions to the Great War by French writers who found imaginative fiction an appropriate medium for dramatizing their anxieties.
Contents:
- L'Ingénieur von Satanas (La Renaissance du Livre, 1919)
- The first version of "La Guerre au vingtième siècle" (La Caricature, 1883)
- The second version of "La Guerre au vingtième siècle" (Georges Decaux, 1887)
- De la pluie qui surprit Candide en son jardin et d'un entretien qu'il eut avec divers personages
by Adrien Bertrand (1888-1917) [The Rain that Surprised Candide in his Garden] in L'Orage sur le jardin de Candide (Calmann-Lévy, 1917)
- Comment Paris a été détruit en six heures le 20 avril 1924 (le jour de Paques) by Louis Baudry de Saunier (1865-1938) [How Paris was Destroyed in Six Hours] (Ernest Flammarion, 1924)
Introduction and Notes by Brian Stableford.