A Journey in Other Worlds: A Romance of the Future by John Jacob Astor IV

To Jupiter and Saturn in the year 2000
When he perished from the sinking of the Titanic, fur empire heir and real estate tycoon John Jacob Astor IV was one of the richest men on Earth. Among his lesser known accomplishments, Astor also wrote a science fiction novel, A Journey in Other Worlds: A Romance of the Future, published in 1894. Set in the year 2000, the novel is divided into three parts. The first depicts America at the dawn of the 21st century, the second details an expedition to the planet Jupiter, and the third follows the space voyage to Saturn.

According to Astor’s utopian vision of the future, all our problems will be solved in the year 2000, at least if you’re an American. The United States has clearly become the world’s superpower and enjoys the advantages of many remarkable technological marvels. Astor was well-versed in the science of his times, and his sci-fi speculations are exhaustively wide-ranging. The book reads as if someone binge read every issue of Popular Science magazine and then unloaded every possible idea into one story. In addition to such prescient ideas as airplanes, universal telecommunications, and various schemes of renewable energy, Astor envisions a project to alter the tilt of the Earth’s axis in order to ensure a pleasant climate year round (for America and Europe, anyway; to hell with everyone else). Colonel Bearwarden is the president of the corporation undertaking this task. Together with his young stockholder Dick Ayrault and Dr. Courtlandt, a “government expert” in all branches of science, he comes up with a plan for an interplanetary expedition. This is made possible by the (fictional) force of apergy, a means of electrically charging objects, such as spaceships, so that gravity repels rather than attracts them. Together, in a spacecraft that sounds a lot like a motor home, curtained windows and all, the three set out for Jupiter.

Once they get to their destination, the trio conduct themselves less like a scientific expedition and more like a hunting party, shooting everything in sight. By 19th-century standards, Astor provides a reasonable scientific justification for every aspect of Jupiter’s environment: its comfortable climate, breathable atmosphere, drinkable water, and its inhabitation by dinosaurs. While the book definitely deserves kudos for its audacity and imagination, it is unfortunately a bore to read. Too many chapters are simply long discussions on astrogeology, which might have been interesting if 95% of what the three men are saying hadn’t already been proven wrong over the past century. The book gets worse when it moves on to Saturn. There Astor abandons science altogether and dives wholeheartedly into the supernatural, depicting Saturn as a world inhabited by the spirits of dead humans from Earth. Though scientifically minded, Astor’s fervent religious piety is evident in his attempts to propose half-baked scientific explanations for everything from biblical stories to the afterlife. What started out as a farfetched but scientifically grounded work of speculative fiction simply devolves into yet another 19th-century Romantic paean to love and divinity.

Astor also makes it clear that his brave new world is only intended for Whites. His vision of utopian America rests largely on colonization and exploitation, whether of Africa or Jupiter. By 2000, the “progressive Anglo-Saxons” have conquered much of the globe and will soon “absorb or run out all inferior races.” While racism is common in 19th-century literature, rarely is it stated so blatantly as that. Though in many ways A Journey in Other Worlds is admirable science fiction for its time, there are good reasons, both literary and ethical, why it’s not popularly regarded as a classic.
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Astoria: John Jacob Astor and Thomas Jefferson’s Lost Pacific Empire by Peter Stark

Lewis and Clark was a walk in the park by comparison
The Astoria Expedition of 1810 to 1813 established the first permanent (non-Native) American settlement on the Pacific Coast. The expedition was financed by wealthy New Yorker John Jacob Astor, who dreamed of monopolizing the Western fur trade and raking in billions doing business with the Chinese. Astor planned a two-pronged attack on the West Coast, with separate parties traveling by land and sea to rendezvous at the mouth of the Columbia River. Following closely on the heels of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, the Astoria Expedition was every bit as epic an adventure as that earlier journey. Besides a lot of historical markers on the side of Western highways, however, the story of the Astorian pioneers, while once familiar to the American public, has since faded into relative obscurity compared to the legendary status of Lewis and Clark. With his 2014 book Astoria: John Jacob Astor and Thomas Jefferson’s Lost Pacific Empire, author Peter Stark aims to resurrect this important story from American history and restore it to the prominence it deserves.

In many ways, the Lewis and Clark Expedition, however arduous, was an example of a trip where almost everything went right. There was only one fatality, from illness. Conflict with the Indians was minimal. They never drifted terribly far off course. The Astoria Expedition, on the other hand, is an example where just about everything that could go wrong did go wrong, for both the sea-faring party and the cross-country trekkers. Internal conflict, an ambiguous chain of command, poor decision-making or a lack thereof, faulty wilderness survival skills, undiplomatic relations with the Native population, the outbreak of the War of 1812, and more all added up to a mission impossible with a high body count. Although Lewis and Clark’s crew suffered from hunger and privation, their troubles pale in comparison to the perils encountered by the Astorians. Stark does a good job of bringing these hardships to vivid reality, but he’s always a little too ready to shift focus back to Astor in his cozy Manhattan brownstone and praise the fur baron’s vision of global domination. Stark strikes a pretty good balance between happenings on the East and West coasts, but I would have preferred a little more of the microhistory of the travelers and their survival tales, and a little less of the relentless affirmation of Astor’s importance as a pioneer of globalization.

Though several members of the Astorian land and sea parties kept diaries of the journey, there seems to be a lot less information available on this expedition than that of Lewis and Clark. Stark is forced to skip over periods of time or to resort to filling in blank spots with speculation. All historians do this to some extent, but one wishes there were a greater pool of primary source material from which to draw. Documentation was one of the primary missions of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, as it had specific scientific, geographic, and diplomatic mandates to fulfill. The Astoria Expedition, on the other hand, was largely a commercial venture, and its members were primarily focused not on exploration or diplomacy but simply on the getting there. In terms of an adventure story, the Astoria trip may be the grittier and more treacherous quest, but it lacks some of the epic grandeur and Enlightenment spirit of its predecessor.

Stark’s book is an illuminating reinvestigation and compelling retelling of this important episode in America history. It’s also just a great wilderness adventure story. Anyone interested in Western expansion or the early exploration of the American continent will certainly find it an enjoyable read.
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