Three Science Fiction Novellas: From Prehistory to the End of Mankind

by J. -H. Rosny aîné

  11. Rosny’s protagonist seems to be a born scientist. From the earliest age, he is drawn to study the beings he perceives in this alternate dimension. He has an innate ability to observe and analyze unusual “alien” phenomena (like Bakhoun, also a stranger in a strange land). As in Les Xipéhuz, Rosny’s other species consists of geometrical forms. These forms may in fact prove not truly alien. For what first seems unhuman may in fact be something common to human consciousness in general. Arthur C. Clarke plays ironically with this idea in Childhood’s End. His Overlords have horns and tails. We learn, subsequently, that early unenlightened mankind perceived these beings as devils, but in fact they are benefactors. Those who have read The Xipéhuz know that Rosny has suggested that there were others, in the night of time, who perceived and described such Forms. Were Bakhoun’s Xipéhuz somehow related to the Moedigen? And might not such ancient sightings have impressed these geometrical forms on the human psyche as a universal heritage? The fact that the narrator of Un autre monde cannot explain where he got the name Moedigen suggests deep racial memory.

  12. We notice again that Rosny’s Moedigen have the evolutionary disadvantage of being a closed system. Their existence obeys a principle of transfer of energy from weaker to stronger. While this transfer implies a form of perpetual motion, it excludes catastrophic losses or leaps—forces that lead either to annihilation or to advancement of a species.

  13. This trait of rapid speech, which Heinlein calls “speedtalk,” becomes a sign of human advancement, indeed a mark of election, in his novella Gulf (Astounding Science Fiction, November and December 1949; reprinted in Assignment in Eternity [New York: Signet Books, 1953], 7–68). Protagonist Kettle Belly Baldwin belongs to a secret society of advanced humans. In a literal application of Korzybskian semantics (that human thought is performed only in symbols, a theory developed by Alfred Korzybski), Baldwin’s ability to master speedtalk denotes a kind of evolutionary superiority: “Any man capable of learning speedtalk had an association time at least three times as fast as an ordinary man . . . a New Man had an effective life time of at least sixteen hundred years, reckoned in flow of ideas” (56). Rosny’s protagonist may have the same life-extending power, but he is totally unaware of it, as is Dr. Van den Heuvel. On the contrary, he realizes he must find ways to slow down his speech in order to communicate his knowledge to beings who do not speak fast. He does not seek to detach himself from normative humanity, but rather to reintegrate his vision with that of human science. Again, he is blithely unaware of what we might call “the Superman gambit”: exploiting one’s special abilities as the means of gaining great power in the human world.

  14. This may refer to Bakhoun’s desire to inscribe knowledge in order to pass it on to distant posterity. The mutant’s problem is different. He is deprived of normal writing, as his thoughts outrun the medium. What is needed is shorthand, a rapid form of writing that will capture his vision, just as electronic playback at slower speed will translate his speedtalk. Interestingly, in radically different contexts, we have two observers in search of a medium of expression. Bakhoun, at the “dawn” of humankind, uses a cumbersome medium the very opposite of “speed” writing. Yet his text has apparently come down to M. Dessault, its contemporary translator. The phonograph replaces the stylus, and is an advance in terms of rapid “pickup” of information. But what of its durability, a key factor in evolution of ideas and species? For continuity of thought, the end of Un autre monde suggests another “slow” medium: successive generations of mutants serving as investigators.

  15. Frankenstein is surely on Rosny’s mind here. Earlier Rosny’s mutant, like Frankenstein’s monster, has lamented his isolation from mankind, even asserted that his new faculties make him superior to those who reject him. Despite this, the mutant reveals a steadfastly anti-Frankensteinian purpose. He will not destroy those who reject him, but instead prove his ultimate usefulness to them. The tale of science must never swerve into one of gothic horror.

  16. The Heerengracht (“Gentlemen’s Street”) is the main canal in Amsterdam.

  17. At the time of this story, Borneo was part of the Dutch East Indies. Borneo became independent in 1945 and now comprises the modern nation of Indonesia.

  18. A device called the “phonautograph” was patented March 25, 1857, by Edouard-Léon Scott. It could record sound, but not play it back. Charles Cros formulated the theory of the phonograph in 1877. Thomas Edison announced his invention of, and demonstrated, the first working phonograph November 29, 1877. The device was still somewhat of a novelty at the time Rosny wrote his story.

  19. In essence, the narrator’s visual faculties comprise what is called today extrasensory perception, a paranormal power. It is interesting that Van den Heuvel places them in the context of chemical and physical theories that, in the earlier nineteenth century, shaded toward the paranormal. The theory of “elective affinities” belongs to early nineteenth-century chemistry. It posited a force that caused chemical reactions between dissimilar elements, forming new (and unstable) compounds. Wolfgang von Goethe, in his novel Die Wahlverwandtschaften (Elective affinities; 1809), uses this term to describe moral unions, in accordance with the adage “Opposites attract.” Modern chemistry redefines such “affinities” in a measurable manner as the tendency of atoms to combine by chemical reaction with atoms of unlike composition to form compounds. Likewise, the term “magnetism” looks back to earlier science. In physics, it refers to the phenomenon by which materials exert an attractive or repulsive force on each other. But in the early nineteenth century, “magnetism” was Mesmerism, unexplained action at a distance. Thus, despite Van den Heuvel’s scientific objectivity, he still acknowledges the shadow of the paranormal that hovers over the mutant.

  20. “Le monde du quatrième état.” Again, the expression can refer to supernatural phenomena such as ghosts and spirits, but need not. The “fourth state” of matter (the first three are: solid, liquid, gas) is ionized gas, a substance identified by Sir William Crookes, the inventor of the cathode ray tube, as “radiant matter” in 1874. This substance was dubbed “plasma” by Irving Langmuir in 1928. “Ionization” describes the dissociation of one electron from a given body of atoms or molecules, creating a “free” electric charge. Rosny, well versed in scientific discoveries, surely knew of radiant matter.

  21. The phrase “a world just as much prisoner of the earth” represents Rosny’s central formulation of an ecological vision that was merely implicit in Les Xipéhuz. In this case, the beings in question are as invisible to us as we to them, yet both enact “modifications of shared ground,” and are assumed to obey the same physical laws of causality, mortality, and so on. The ferromagnetics in La Mort de la Terre are again beings of a shared environment, as well as a common evolutionary path.

  22. Rosny no doubt means by humus organic compost. But the fact that he italicizes the word in his text may mean he is thinking of the more technical sense of the word. In terms of soil science, humus is organic matter that has broken down to a point of stability and uniformity at which it can remain for centuries. If the Moedigen can penetrate humus while remaining refractory to defined minerals and material objects (we humans are also thus refractory), could not this somewhat basic entity (indeed humans and all organic matter as we know it decompose into humus) mark a point of convergence between the two worlds?

  23. The Moedigen are not specifically cannibals, as are Wells’s Martians. Nor do they not kill their adversaries, they merely “take energy without exhausting the sources of life.” Through the conservation of energy, they seem to have reached a form of homeostasis. Yet Rosny here seems to challenge such closed systems. For he introduces a wild card into the closed equation: the mutant who can see into their world while they cannot see into ours. This seems an element of evolutionary chance. Heinlein will later call such changes “serendipity,” an unforeseen something that allows an otherwise weaker humanity to make fortunate “paradigm” leaps like the one we witness here.

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nbsp; 24. “La Fable.” Given the capitalization of the word in the French text, one can only imagine that this is the miraculous story of Christ, the Greatest Story Ever Told. The capital letter shows that the scientist has respect for this Story, but remains too much the believer in evolution. He has before him the product of this process, a “miracle” made flesh and blood in a very different manner, through what appears to be random selection.

  25. The mutant’s hymn to the random process of natural selection has also a religious ring to it, as if there were still some higher providence operating above human vanity and evolutionary theory alike.

  26. One wonders whom the narrator is addressing here, who is “you”? He seems to turn away from the specified context of his narrative, and to address an audience who needs to be aware of the fact that, beyond his own limits, science will continue to be served by his progeny. Dr. Van den Heuvel seems very happy with a mutant progeny. The narrator however, perhaps aware of possible misgivings on the part of his audience as to what could be a potentially dangerous event for humankind, seems to address them directly, hoping to assuage their possible fears.

  27. Hyperesthésique, a highly technical medical term: a sufferer from hyperaesthesia, a pathological sensitivity of the skin or other sense organ to a particular stimulus. This is an example of the scientific language that Rosny’s contemporaries considered a barbarism in his texts.

  28. Again we have what seems a Frankensteinian gloss. Frankenstein’s creator refuses to give the creature a bride, fearing such a union would generate a new “race” of monstrous beings. This idea obsesses Dr. Frankenstein. What astounds here is that Dr. Van den Heuvel never seems to give this a thought, even though there appear to be other beings similar in physical nature to the narrator, and that their mating produces effortless replicas. This would have been nemesis to Dr. Frankenstein.

  The Death of the Earth

  1. This epigraph is curious. The tone is one of warning, and implies that human hubris was the major factor in the death of the Earth. Yet this is qualified by the word annonçait (“heralded”), which does not attribute causality. In fact, we will learn later that this “death” is not the destruction of the physical Earth, but rather the destruction of humankind in a physical environment whose conditions have changed to the point that it no longer supports carbon-based life forms. Moreover, even if our working of iron engendered the rise of the ferromagnetics, we later learn that this activity was a natural by-product of human industry, thus the “natural” course of evolution for humans.

  2. What exactly is this “Great Planetary,” which Rosny presents on the first page of the novella without further details? The author invents here a literary device developed by later SF writers such as Heinlein, Van Vogt, and Dick, where peoples, things, and machines are given names but as objects are not explained, in terms of origin, function, or other properties. Any explanation, if there is one, must emerge from the text itself, readers familiarize themselves with its strange new world and learn to negotiate it. Readers thus becomes active participants in building a new world that is extrapolated from their own, but clearly different. Here, at first, we can only guess what it might mean to be the “watchman” of the “Great Planetary.” We gain more of an idea as the narrative unfolds. But nowhere is this entity explained in full.

  3. The French word is veilleur, literally “watchman.” It is used in modern French principally in the expression “veilleur de nuit” (night watchman). In Rosny’s context, its meaning is the more archaic one of “veiller sur” (to watch over), which carries quasi-religious connotations (as in the English word “wake”).

  4. Targ and Arva are in effect the “beautiful people” of this far future, where humankind has mastered all forces, except those that prove beyond its control. Theirs is a long lineage, from Wells’s earlier Eloi to the late humans of Arthur C. Clarke’s Against the Fall of Night (1952) and a myriad other SF futures. Typically in such scenarios (Rosny is no exception) one or several last humans remain who revolt against this gathering darkness.

  5. In this narrative, Rosny invents a series of devices and materials proper to this distant future world and gives them names and descriptions, just as Hugo Gernsback and others known as pioneers of SF will later do. Like later SF neologisms, Rosny’s coinages are often Janus faced, looking backward as they look forward. An example is the Great Planetary (Grand Planétaire). It performs great technical feats, sending and receiving messages across vast empty spaces. Yet its components are described as “conch” (conque) and “corolla,” the ancient shell and flower. “Arcum,” however, is a made-up substance; the word is found in no dictionary in French or English. But it sounds oddly familiar, as if it did exist.

  6. Rosny’s description of these sleek, overevolved birds looks forward to much later SF depiction of future skyscapes, from Frank R. Paul’s Amazing Stories back covers of the early 1940s, to the stylized visions of French artists such as Moebius and Philippe Druillet. Interestingly, these birds still augur, even though no gods remain to bring back signs from. While the superstitious prehistoric tribes in Les Xipéhuz practice haruspicy, the reading of entrails of sacrificial animals, Rosny’s elegant future birds remain close to the oscines of Roman times, the divining of future events according to the direction from which birds call or fly. These birds are the last vestiges of once teeming animal life, and a world without them would be unbearable. This reminds the reader of the world of Anarres in Ursula Le Guin’s novel The Dispossessed (1970), an austere desert inhabited by sophisticated people, but void of animal life. One thinks as well of Kate Wilhelm’s 1976 novel Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang, in which Shakespeare’s Sonnet 73 is literal reality. In that work, however, all the environmental disasters that bring about a world of monotonous sameness are manmade. The result is a die-off of all species, in a world where mankind can survive only in the form of exact clones.

  7. The process of evolutionary checks and balances expressed here by Rosny is more pessimistic than that articulated by Wells’s narrator at the end of The War of the Worlds (1898). There the all-powerful Martians are destroyed by microbes to which humans, over a long period of suffering and death, have become immune. In Rosny, immunity to one set of conditions brings about susceptibility to another set. “Progress” may have an ironic ring in the mouth of Wells’s narrator, yet Wells offers no reason why humanity, within reasonable limits, cannot advance. In Rosny, progress is an illusion. In overcoming one set of problems, we invariably create others. Thus, by eradicating organic parasites, we create mineral ones.

  8. Motrice: a neologism. The French noun motricité has the specialized, physiological meaning “motor functions”; the noun automotrice refers to an electric railcar. Rosny’s neologism clearly refers to a motorized vehicle, a variation on the automobile. In order to suggest its future potentialities, we translate it “motocruiser.”

  9. Appareils sismiques. A mercury seismometer was invented by Luigi Palmieri in 1855, and an English seismologist invented a horizontal pendulum seismograph in 1880.

  10. Ondifère, a neologism, with root in onde (wave), that expresses the idea of a conveyer of (sound) waves. As this seems here a two-way device, we have translated it “sender-receiver.”

  11. Resonateurs, a neologism. The Online Etymology Dictionary lists the first recorded use of the verb “to resonate” as 1873. In 1910 Rosny coins a noun that suggests a wireless device that receives and transmits sound waves.

  12. Les météores. The Dictionnaire Littré defines this term in the “modern” sense (which would be that of Rosny here) as “phenomena like heat, light, wind, thunderstorms that occur on the Earth’s surface in relation to atmospheric disturbances.”

  13. We have rendered the tense and voice changes as they occur in the text, in order to give the reader a sense of the shifts of narrative perspective. The reader notices the hiatus that occurs here in the text. The new section begins with a different speaking voice, that of five hundred centuries of postcatastrophe
generations, with a sweep in time that goes from the “have occupied” of postcatastrophe memory all the way back to precatastrophe memory. In relation to convention, Rosny’s narrator seems to lack consistent focus. We can see this either as “bad writing” or as a means (either conscious or unconscious on Rosny’s part) of making the reader think differently about narrative time and its conventions. Rosny’s narrative begins from what seems conventional “omniscience,” sub specie aeternitatis. At this moment in the text, the focus narrows, and the narrative is now that of human memory, restricted in time and space. Then, in the middle of this narrative, there is further restriction, marked by the appearance of a first person plural, and then (surprisingly) a first person singular speaking subject. The narrator seems to become an intimate part of Targ’s world. From this point on, the narrator shows increasing familiarity with Targ’s innermost thoughts. If one considers the possibility, suggested by the narrator speaking in the past tense after the death of Targ, that Targ has been the genetic and memetic vector of carbon life into a posthuman era, then it is tempting to see this refocusing narrator as “retracing” the evolutionary path that inscribes the rise and fall of humankind, the final compression of this experience in Targ’s final “dream.” As we caution in the introduction, what is important here is not the correctness of any given interpretation. It is the fact that we are urged by Rosny’s narrative, because it seems to operate in a new perspective of evolutionary space-time, to seek explanations outside of conventional limits. In the very form of his narrative, Rosny seems to invent the literature of extrapolation we call “hard SF” today.