A Honeymoon in Space by George Griffith

Underwhelming Victorian pleasure trip through the solar system

George Griffith was a popular and prolific British science fiction writer, active from the 1890s up to World War I, who never really cemented his place in literary history like H. G. Wells or Jules Verne. Although his books were imaginative and pioneering works of science fiction for their time, Griffith didn’t really have the literary talent of either of his more famous contemporaries. Nevertheless, his works had a notable influence on their genre. Griffith’s best-known novel is his 1893 debut The Angel of the Revolution. His novel A Honeymoon in Space, comprised of a series of short stories first appearing in Pearson’s Magazine, was published in 1901.

A Honeymoon in Space does not take place in a future when spaceflight is common. Rather, it is the story of the first-ever spaceflight. In fact, since it was written before the Wright Brothers’ first flight, it tells the story of the first non-inflatable powered aircraft. This aircraft, the Astronef, causes quite a stir when it appears in the skies over the Atlantic. Lord Redgrave, a British earl, is the financier of the project and its daring pilot, but the brains behind the operation is a recently deceased scientist, Professor Rennick. Redgrave is in love with Rennick’s daughter, Zaidie, so he basically kidnaps her from an ocean liner (with a spinster chaperone, of course), even though she is betrothed to another. Zaidie welcomes the abduction, however, and agrees to marry Redgrave. Throwing caution to the wind as no groom has ever done before, Redgrave decides to take his bride on a perilous tour of the unexplored solar system.

In typical Victorian fashion, it takes a while to get the adventure started. Several chapters go by in which Griffith reveals his political inclinations, including his views on the superiority of the Anglo-Saxon race, which was so much more overtly trumpeted in The Angel of the Revolution. Supposedly Griffith was a Socialist, but he really seems to idolize the British nobility in the Prince Charming character of Redgrave, and of course the earl couldn’t make the trip without a faithful servant, Murgatroyd. Zaidie is depicted as a spunky American woman, perhaps a stronger heroine than one will find in most Victorian genre fiction, but still her most pressing duty is to make coffee for her man.

Before the age of spaceflight little was known about the celestial bodies in our solar system. Scientists could speculate on their gravity, climate, and terrain, and from this Griffith bases his fictional visions of the various worlds. The happy couple visits all the planets from Venus to Saturn, as well as a few moons and asteroids. Not surprisingly, many are inhabited by life, in some cases intelligent life, otherwise it wouldn’t make much of a story. Griffith is a believer in Darwin’s theory of evolution, so he uses the planets as illustrations of what life on Earth might have been like millions of years ago, or what it might be like millions of years from now. Some lapses in scientific realism can be attributed to the antiquity of the novel, while others are just silly. The story opens with a bunch of sailors staring directly into the sun through binoculars. Redgrave’s method of testing the atmosphere on the various worlds he visits is to crack his helmet open and take a whiff, heedless of whatever poisonous vapors might be present.

Such absurdities would be forgivable if the novel were more fun, but this journey through space is actually rather underwhelming. I can only recall one instance of danger that was moderately exciting. This book will appeal mostly to aficionados of vintage science fiction who can appreciate Griffith’s place in the history of the genre and admire his speculations as precocious for their time.
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The Angel of the Revolution: A Tale of the Coming Terror by George Griffith

Dreary world-war fantasy with racist aftertaste
The Angel of the Revolution, a novel by British author George Griffith, was originally serialized in 1893 issues of the periodical Pearson’s Weekly. It is a work of science fiction that is set in the near future of 1903. A young scientist named Richard Arnold, working in his own private laboratory, has invented a flying machine. A major advance over the technology of his time, Arnold’s invention is not merely a modified balloon but an actual powered flying machine capable of great speed, agile maneuverability, and a heavy carrying capacity. So far, however, Arnold has only been able to construct a scale model of his design. He lacks the money to build a full-sized prototype. At the moment of his greatest financial difficulty, he is approached by a mysterious man named Colston who offers to help him bring his concept into production. Colston introduces Arnold to a secret organization of anarchists and nihilists who call themselves the Brotherhood of Freedom, though the rest of the world refers to them as The Terrorists. The Brotherhood wants to use Arnold’s flying machine to crush the world’s military forces, in particular those of the Russian Tsar, in order to bring about world peace. Being sympathetic to their ideals, Arnold joins the Brotherhood and becomes their admiral of the air.

The Angel of the Revolution is a very well-written pulp fiction adventure novel. Griffith’s prose is consistently brisk, often exciting, and surprisingly fresh. His writing is less antiquated than even exemplary contemporaries like H. G. Wells or Jules Verne. While the way Griffith tells his story is quite commendable, however, what he actually has to say is not so appealing. This is really an ugly story, the purpose of which is to rack up as much carnage and as high a body count as possible. One really has to have an appetite for destruction to appreciate this novel. Much of the plot revolves around troop movements and airpower strategy and reads like some pompous wargamer pontificating over a game of Risk.

Though the Brotherhood are supposedly men with no nation, the story clearly favors the Brits over the evil Russians. The Tsar’s regime is depicted as institutionalized torture and murder, yet the Brotherhood itself doesn’t come across as much more humane. We are supposed to admire these “heroes” as they mercilessly destroy all opposition before them, but their methods and their speech ring of fascism. The system with which they propose to replace the existing world order is vaguely socialist, but in the hands of the psychotic Brotherhood it would no doubt devolve into an iron-handed oppression even worse than the Soviet Union’s heyday of human rights violations.

In addition, there’s the racism. In Griffith’s world war England and Germany team up against an alliance of France, Russia, and Italy, thus pitting the palest, blondest nations in Europe against the swarthy Southerners and Slavs. The novel explicitly states in several passages that the Anglo-Saxon race is destined to inherit the Earth. Once they conquer Europe, the Brotherhood plan to then exert their influence over the colonies of Africa and the “yellow barbarism” of the East.

If you want to read an excellent science fiction novel about a future socialist revolution, read Jack London’s The Iron Heel (1907). London himself was an Anglo-Saxon supremacist, but not blatantly in that book, and the political theory is a lot smarter than the pointless bloodlust on display in The Angel of the Revolution.
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