Vintage Science Fiction from Australian Newspapers

Items

• The Dream Machine
  Late Professors invention discovered. Record plays the sound of his experiment on a vagrant to delve into the subconscious eliciting the story of how man first came to Earth.
• The Doom of the Zeppelin
  Advanced Zeppelins Attack London. Short story.
• The Diamond Lens
  Reprinted from 1858. "The Ten Greatest Tales of Awe and Mystery Ever Written No. 7. A scientist working in his laboratory chances upon a microscopic humanoid and falls in love with her staring through the microscope for hours but is devastated when the droplet of water dries up and she shrivels and dies. The male gaze is strong with this one. Originally published in the Atlantic Monthly.
• The Devolution of Man
  A satirical review of the Fortieth Century Review book written by Dr. Janet Fowler based on the recovered manuscripts from ancient Melbourne describing the male rebellion in 2350 and the liberal thinking in the treatment of men with it now being voluntary to have a male child whether men should be admitted to university and whether grown men should be allowed to be walking about the streets unescorted. Being a review of the 40th century (3900s) the book is probably copyright 4001.
• The Decline and Fall of the Australian Empire. A Chapter of Future History.
  China takes over NSW and Victoria
• The Day! Or the Passing of the Throne (aka just 'The Passing of the Throne')
  Advanced zeppelins attacking London.
• The Dawn of All
  Catholics get an advanced airship to spread the Word
• The Dark Planet
  The narrator finds an otherworldly orb. He climbs aboard and is suddenly taken to another planet where he begins to educate the medieval feathered men on science, falls in love, but has to escape in one of the craft back to Earth (and tell his story) Roughly! Summary to be updated when all sections can be read.
• The Cruise of the Golden Caterpillar
  A large long segmented train like bus created by a renowned professor starts a 3 month exploration of the Australian outback. Complete with everything you need for a long journey. Criminals try to steal the plans for the engine.
• The Coloured Conquest
  Set in June 1913 and printed from the book released in 1904. The last free Caucasian is suggested of his Japanese friend to write of his experiences of the last few years when all non-Causians joined together to enslave every White person. Slavery, Eugenics, and conditioning. A dystopian world, although the narrator writes from mostly understanding point of view that Caucasians brought it on themselves.
• The Clutching Hand. Scientific Detective Tales.
  Terribly written melodramatic spy drama made up of 7 stories (and made into a movie) full of inventions and a hero repeatedly rescuing a damsel from villains with no real reason for their continued attacks besides that they're evil. They even have a death ray which the inventor hero is able to resist.
• The Cloud King or Up in the Air and Down in the Sea
  An aeoronaut travels around the world in an advanced balloon describing overcoming science and engineering problems and meeting advanced and unusual civilisations
• The Bridge. A Mystery of War
  An invention that destroys bridges and prevents new ones. Original published in the Chambers Journal in 1909-1910 pages 451-455 remote control torpedo that can be directed using a map covered in wires. Published in London.
• The Branded Spy
  Spy drama with futuristic submarines facing off between Japanese and Americans and British interceding to prevent a war. Research indicates that submarine I-14 described in the text by the author in 1936 was not built until 1943. Also there is a discussion about the Japanese threat to Pearl Harbour. This aborted future war is more spy story than science fiction like most near contemporary future war stories yet its prescience makes it a worthy addition to the list.
• The Boy Inventor. The Amazing Adventures of Don Delmont The Boy inventor, and his pal, "Dandy" Stevens.
  Invents a stratosphere plane. A bullet-proof electric aero-car with an oxyacetylene headlight and a gyroscopically controlled car and many other inventions.
• The Blue Bolt
  A sequel to The Silver Ball (1908) similar in style. Professor uses electricity to erase invaders.
• The Blood of the Ghettos and the Red Trail of the Brigands: A Concise History of the Year 1957.
  Italians versus Jewish Russians in North Australia in 1957. Bored telephone operators, personal flying vehicles, and a civil war. Eventually they lose, and the Jewish Russians are deported to Palestine to set up New Jerusalem and the Italians are deported to savage islands. Predictions abound.
• The Black Box / The Pocket Wireless / The Tenement House Mystery
  Based on the silent movie. A crime story involving a professor and his pocket wireless which can communicate by text with others who have it. A character keeps being given a black box with riddles clues and advice in the investigation of a murder robbery.
• The Awful Cataclysm in Ireland
  An invention that destroys half of ireland drilling miles deep. A similar story appeared as Doctor Who Inferno in 1970 reinforcing the science fiction theme of the vintage concept.
• The Automatic Pen. Guaranteed to Spell Correctly.
  A university student gives her physics and mathematics professor her science project, a pen that will write the right words as he writes, as he had trouble with spelling. This leads to a romance and marriage. A short story with more of a linguistic rather than science focus. A light, humorous story.
• The Automatic Killers
  Trigger warning. Some graphic body dismembering near the start. An evil half Chinese half Japanese genius has controlled the dead using 'Radcliffe' a liquid form of electricity and 10 times more powerful able to increase the strength and resistance of anything living or dead. He also has a giant rat!
• The Attack Upon Sydney. A Page from the History of the Future
  French attack Sydney. Electricians and electric lights discussed. Noiseless torpedo boat engines boats and other vehicles with electric lights and a huge and fast British ship rechristened City of Sydney. A fiction story advising Sydney to get her military more men and equipment and defensive positions.
• The Antarcticans. Being the Further and Still More Surprising Adventures of Captain Bjornvik in the Regions Around the South Pole.
  Bjornvik and crew are getting ready for another trip when their ship is suddenly captured by a mysterious electric force akin to the kind of electricity described by Nikolai Tesla. Bjornvik eventually meets his captor, a scientist who has created a vast advanced city with 3.5 million inhabitants. Soon Bjornvik warms to the king and the king takes him and his friends across the vast civilisation beyond the ice where, along with extensive explanations of scientific principles, we get to encounter a wide variety of futuristic inventions, some of which don't appear in our reality until 100 years later. Trigger warning: The punishment inventions for criminals are quite gruesome.
• The Antarcticans
  Future inventions and a character wanting to get the power of the lost civilisation (Different to A. J. Boyd's Antarcticans.)
• The Air Devil
  A near future rivalry between two advanced airplane companies. While planes travelled at the normal speed for the 1930s (150mph) they are bigger able to take 40 passengers rather than the usual 21-32. Planes exploding every few chapters while preparations to launch a new advanced plane the X4 continues.
• The Aerial Wedding An Australian Romance
  Includes details of the structure of the 4-seat aeroplane invention complete with foldable balloon and flapping wings. A humorous story written around the idea that the father wanted his daughter to wed someone high.
• Stratosphere Express
  Advanced aeroplane discussions of rockets and meteorites dealing with polar environment and engineering
• Stella Figelius: A Tale of Three Destinies
  Inventor talks about contacting the stars and creating an aeroplane
• Space
  Children attempt to escape in their spaceship from a death ray fired from Mars.
• South (not completed)
  Inventor builds a 600 feet long advanced submarine-airship with beam ice cutters and attempts to reach the south pole. Written by a child awarded a certificate and paragraphs of chapters split over several weeks but no further instalments in childrens pages after September that are available on Trove.
• Sky-High Terror
  Mendip II new aeroplane with gravity plates and a particular kind of spirit fuel is repeatedly sabotaged and stolen while a romance takes place and police investigate. Just an advanced invention macguffin. More of a crime story than SF.
• Skirmish Posts of Earth
  A group of explorers plan to learn more about a mysterious tribe in the heart of Papua New Guinea and take their boat up the river to find them. They discover a statue made of a material currently unknown which activates, detects their party of 25 and sends a 'carrier wave' to the tribe, before encountering one-foot-tall natives carrying 'light' spears that give electric shocks and can shoot birds from trees. They're captured, taken to a city inside a crater, their revolvers are locked by some electromagnetic force, and they're trapped in a hut with a door of energy that flickers and sparks, and reflects any force given to it. Though it decends into an altar sacrifice of natives using gas bulb lights and vaporisation, an explosion destroying the natives energy, and the escape of the whites.
• Silence
  Scientist creates a device that causes silence for miles then attempts to use it along with a crime syndicate to rob all the banks in the world from Vesuvius. Vesuvius erupts.
• Secret of the Rays
  Set in 1950 with gyroscope planes that overcome the pull of gravitation and criminals who use a black ray to put everyone asleep testing and getting supplies while finding a protective ray that can prevent this particular cosmic ray. Ends abruptly on a romantic note.
• Sea Gold. The Romance of a Pirate Submarine
  Book printed in 1936. Advanced submarine is forgotten when the country experiences a coup and the crew travel the world finding a way to fight back. Article stating author is Australian https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/205898639
• Ruled by Radio or The Man Who Stole the Ether
  Attempt to locate the Z-Ray. Set in future 1930. Some science. Some mentions of current tech. Murders of people who want the Z-Ray. quote: beastly scientific gadgets. Story focuses on a scientist and his secret and how society wants to wrest something like that from him and his constant fight to keep it. Aeroplanes fitted with it have force fields quote set the electric current to magentise the outer zone The Ray of Death. The Ray machine. Creates an electrical zone and shoots death rays. The silent projected beam is turned by the scientist on himself and he is fried at the end. Published in 1925 as a novel.
• Reminiscences of a Volunteer A. D. 1925. The Battle of Dorking
  A war set in 1921 ending the British empire.
• Prospective History A Chapter Taken from the Future History of Victoria Time April 1868
  Political satire featuring sudden increase in native industries. A massive fence built along the coast and various social development predictions under a future dictator.
• Prof. Vehr's Electrical Experiment
  A professor creates a glass bell infused with an extrostatic liquid that not only induces the ability of a user to conduct remote viewing but once the location is confirmed dissolves their atoms and reconstitutes them at the location with the ability to not only bring them back but also another with them. A young lover attempts to retrieve his love from another city but on returning the machine explodes and the narrator has not been able to find them since. A more etheric form of teleportation.
• Out of the Silence
  Failed past utopian technosociety wants to rule again. Invention of a ray that only kills people with pigmented skin.
• On Satan's Mount
  Looks socialist domestic political. No set future year but seems like at least 50 years. Auto-cars. Aerophone. Mammoth Liner. Electrothermic power has replaced coal. A new electric rifle accidentally erases the president and his contingent but starts with a horse race congress elections and socialism discussions and features typewriters in a newsagency. Still typewriters didn't disappear until the 1980s so pretty good!
• Nilda. A Tale of the German Invasion of 1912
  1914 war predicted in 1912. Some inventions. 28 chapters that abruptly end
• Night Wings
  This is the age of the aeronauts. Advanced hydrogen balloon airship for two with electric controls yet away from that are horses old equipment telegrams and communication by light flashes emphasizing the advancement of the balloon. Mostly a war story with the balloon not the centre of attention. An alien (foreign) torpedo shaped biplane visits a British beach communicating with a spy. After shooting it down Great Britain invents smaller balloon ships to fight them. Like in modern science fiction the airships are described with maritime vocabulary.
• Next Port Eldorado
  Barry escapes Count Musa in an amphibious vehicle of his own invention featuring other inventions but more of a spy vs spy story.
• Neuroomia: A New Continent
  Utopia at the South Pole and also refers to their contact with Mars life.
• Mystery at Maralinga
  Boys break into what they think is an empty house but find it full of inventions based on the infra-red ray. They are captured by their enemy who plans to cremate them with his new invention. Borderline science fiction as the science is not well explained but it features the main inventions of a ray-machine and explosive yellow powder.
• My Grandfather's Narrative of The Siege of Sydney
  Short story set in 1911. A volunteer talks about his experience in the 1861 siege. A propaganda story ending with a message encouraging volunteering.
• Mr. Spence's account of the Russian Invasion. A.D. 1898. The Battle of Eagle Farm
  Future War set in 1898. Mr Spence's account of the Russian Invasion. Queensland was involved in the frontier wars so this could be a recruitment story.
• Mr. Austin's Airships and Professor Paff's Paralyser
  Sequel to The Silver Ball and The Blue Bolt. Similar in style. The professor creates another invention to fight off invaders.
• More Enduring than Bronze
  Inventor creates a new explosive powder that can destroy Melbourne. Tested on a hill with a great description of how it exploded and a later description of how the force of the explosion wrenched the air around it. Sells to the army. While predominantly a contemporary romance and sensation story science is mentioned with reverence throughout and the story ends with a speech about how science will help families and the future.
• Maureen's Mating
  Two women discuss their adventures with the conversation peppered with multiple instances of the casual use of futuristic inventions and expression of different social norms which leads to Maureen explaining that her intended husband is found to have breached private flight laws by driving under the influence of pills, over the flight speed limit, and failing to activate the infra-red alert system. He is to be tried on live broadcast and they tune in to watch on the television cabinet which doubles as a video phone.
• Marvellous Melbourne Twenty Years Hence (a story from 1909)
  Includes a plague in 1899, Geelong becoming the capital of Victoria a fire and lots of ideas. Short overview with no characters
• Mantrap Manor
  Revenge is taken on a protagonist using electricity as a barrier and traps
• Man's Mortality. The Great Novel
  Politics. War on China and Italy. Set in 1987. Futuristic airships corporation with I.A. planes able to travel at 500 miles an hour. A detailed extrapolation of the future filled with inventions from a capitalist perspective.
• Love, and the Aeroplane. A Tale of Tomorrow.
  A town gets various new inventions using gyroscopes. Gyroscope car, gyroscope monorail but all inventions, apart from the aeroplane being used regularly, are a backdrop to the romance. Jump to the future where married couple's son is grown up driving an 'old car' and is recommended to get one of those new electric cars.
• Love and Learning. A Story with a Moral Concealed on the Premises
  A town built on science and utilitarianism conflicts with a romance between a poet and a scientist. The poet is given drugs and he no longer pursues poetry only science.
• Looking Backward 2000-1887. The Great Reorganisation Novel.
  One of the most influential Utopias in the world spawning clubs and hundreds of similar and rejectionary stories and fan sequels. Lots of inventions.
• Into Space
  Inventor builds a rocket that takes him into space but dies there.
• In the Hour of Defeat
  Holland and Russia declare war on England. Alternate reality near future with huge groups of fighting ships.
• Hullenholme's Death Trap
  Engineer creates submarine to kill the man who took the one he loved. The man escapes the submarine. Short psychological thriller with descriptions of how a submarine works.
• Forty Bob, Or -
  Mendax is forced to pay 40 bob for not voting and in revenge invents a device that turns off the entire telephone exchange in Australia. Likely the last Mendax story.
• Fool's Harvest
  Invasion of Australia by the Cambadians
• Feminter or the Aurora Land of the South
  Adventurers meet a group of women from an advanced civilization and are taken into the bowels of the Earth. Similar to Verne’s Journey to the Centre of the Earth. 21 chapters.
• Economical Love
  A mechanical girl is sold to a drover for 1000 pounds. She can sing but needs winding up every 24 hours. She tells the buyer that she can only love him. The merchant promises she will stay the same for at least 20 years but doesn't like heat. Someone who doesn't know she is an automaton falls in love with her and steals her but she stops moving the next day and he thinks she's dead. In an afterword the author summarises what happens next and advises the story cannot continue as a result.
• Eagles of Queensland
  The Bulyon brothers are Australian inventors serving in the British navy. The older brother develops an advanced airship able to destroy German airships discovered approaching British territory. The younger brother develops a wireless energy case that sits in a boat and is able to send out a powerful wave that disables the electronics in german airplane engines. [This could be interpreted as a machine that can generate an Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP)]
• Dr Silex / The Princess Thora
  Lost civilization of the Asturnians 5000 square miles country of Asturnia. Advanced tech. Pillars of light. Artificial daylight. 5 chapters to get the North Pole adventure started and they arrive around XV. Also describes a nearby island with a dwarf-like race. Strange and Powerful weapons and no risk or subjection to an alien fate. Returning a princess to her country kept warm by a nearby volano. Story ends up in sword fights and a castle so not much in advanced tech for most of it. Detailed description in Bleiler’s book.
• Dr Delmores Secret
  A doctor is given the elixir of life and describes the person who gave it to him and his increasingly youthful appearance.
• Doom of Our Planet
  A scientist creates an 'antigelesis' weapon that creates earthquakes and destroys mountains. Over 50 chapters of discussion and chasing someone who stole the manuscript trying to prevent more deaths.
• Clarence the Camel
  A mechanical camel helps explorers explore the Outback and swims them across a river away from a crocodile.
• Chess A Fool's Mate
  An inventor creates an automated chess set discussing the shortcut in mathematics and predicted moves he took. Interesting that it is similar to a decision made by a chess software engine maker in 2020 called alpha-beta pruning a node-decrease technique developed in the 1950s. This story is next to chess challenges in the newspaper.
• Captain Midnight
  Spy drama with a secret laboratory and a death ray set in Sydney and Tasmania
• Bunkentwaddle's Odicaster
  Inventor converts smells to electrical signals and back again but flower perfume becomes a putrid stench as the receiver is not as good as the transmitter.
• Breed of the ANZACS
  Invasion of the Karnos from Asia. Australian military scramble to fight battleships, planes and hundreds of troops. First mention of the White Australia Policy in vintage science fiction so far.
• Boys of 2036
  Boy wakes up in the future on a high speed road and a boy in a personal flying car helps him dodge a fast car being pursued by robot-like henchmen. Soon, Frank is caught up in a fight against a dictator politician who will do anything to obtain power. Thanks to his friend's father who developed a ray to defeat the evil politician, along with the help of a blind secret agent, Frank survives and is able to return to his own time.
• Barbicane and Co., or The Purchase of the Pole
  Buying the North Pole to set up a technofuturistic society.
• Australia's Peril: A Tale of how NSW might fair during a great war
  Purposive future war suggesting ways for Australia to defend itself. Australia loses to the Germans but England defeats the combined might of Europe. 30 chapters. However, written by a journalist working for the military. Hmm.
• Australia Advanced or Dialogues for the Year 2032
  Dialogues set in the future but are only a slight extrapolation of the 1832 present
• An Awkward Dilemma (Mendax)
  While no specific science was described Mendax had attempted to clone himself with multiple jars of progressing cell cultures and the housekeeper unknown to him just before he arrived at the laboratory had put her granddaughters baby in the final jar to his immense shock.
• An American Emperor
  A rich entrepreneur decides to become king of France to win his hearts desire and among other things creates a business that will revitalise the Sahara restoring it to the water-abundant fertile land it used to be. While science light the narrative features an alternate reality of an American leading France and the invention of a plan to fill the Sahara sands with water.
• An Aeroplane Adventure
  An aeroplane stops for repairs. The motor uses a type of cordite and other parts to operate faster - though the story suggests the aeroplane itself is the invention. Story is mainly about saving the King.
• An Aerial Adventure, or The Secret of a Scientist
  The story features an abduction into a new spaceship invention that will travel to a newly discovered planet. During the 5 year journey mature themes are discussed before they land on an alien planet with extraterrestrials. Biology and economy are discussed in detail yet it soon descends into a simple fight against the kingdom albeit with science-based weapons. Eventually losing one of their crew, the crazed inventor destroys the city in revenge and escapes with the narrator and others.
• An Advance Sheet
  Discussion of parallel worlds and one person has glimpsed one giving details of his encounter with the alternate future
• Alarm
  From The Herald: Through the story runs a tangled skein of romance. The dramatic seizure of the north, air raids of Melbourne and Sydney. Invasion of Queensland, siege of Brisbane-these are dramatic incidents, graphically described, by which the writer points the moral of his visionary story. The forward to this rousing yarn has been written by Mr W. M. Hughes, former Prime Minister, who appreciates the motive of the writer - the awakening of Australia to the need for adequate defence. https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/243622670
• According to Plato
  Inventions but limited bearing on the story's electricity theme. Further close reading is needing.
• A World Divided: A Tale of Two Hemispheres. By An Observer in Mars, A. D. 2000
  The World splits in two through London and Melbourne and is destroyed. Political satire with SF ideas. 11 chapters
• A Weaponless World
  Philosophical and theoretical discussions about the circular nature of time and suggestions of de ja vu are remembering the previous repeated cycle. Ends with character being struck by an aerolite (meteorite)
• A Voyage to the Sun
  A space ship journeys to the sun and the narrative gives scientific explanations. A short simple story of 2 chapters.
• A Visit to the Moon
  Several people visit temples and other places on the moon along with the aliens that live there. Need earlier chapters.
• A Very Modern Elopement
  Discusses electric and gas cars and the invention of a car that has both (hybrid car) (Porsche created the first hybrid in 1901)
• A Trip to the Moon
  The narrator doesn't go into detail about how he finds himself on the far side of the moon but discovers a city of tall beings, befriends a family, and is taken on trips including mountain climbing, skating and other unlikely adventures. While this could easily have been dismissed as children's fantasy, while the writer doesn't go into too much detail about the science, it is written rationally (no magic) and includes comparison to Earth society at the time which makes it compelling reading. Narrative changes abruptly in the final chapter where the narrator wakes up beside his wife (someone who is not mentioned at all in the entire story) and finds it is all a dream. However, the newspaper closed shortly after so this might have been the act of a caring publisher before the end.
• A Socialist Dilemma. Being a Fragmentary Chapter from the Future.
  Utopia reply from Australia to Bellamy showing ingratitude as people always want more. Inventions included a machine that can stretch or shrink everyone's height so that everyone is equal. Satirical.
• A North Pole Romance
  In the 28th century a triple x-ray long-distance telescope enables a woman to see through the Earth from England to Boston and see her cheating lover with another woman.
• A New Palingenesis
  Describes the transfer of the soul's electrical energy to a receptacle and back again with pages of scientific explanations.
• A New Eden
  Published as a book in 1896. Set in 2096 a future utopia in Australia yet the world is a dystopia and no one ever lands until this story and then two are executed as a result.
• A Mover of Mountains
  Inventor creates a machine that can shift sandhills using wind power written third person laconic style.
• A Modern Atlantis
  Set in an equality driven egalitarian society, explaining the social and work structure of all the a happy people in Atlantis. Advanced Culture. Electric Trams etc.
• A Mechanical Minister
  A church minister that is cranked from the back overcranked then goes crazy. Satire similar to the mechanical salesman. Mentions New York.
• A Man Who Grew Young Again
  Blood transfusions to save a man from a gunshot cause him to become 30 years younger and no one believes him
• A Man from Mars
  A god-like man has crashed in a coffin-like metal pod during a tropical storm and the narrator rescues him. But he is bored by everyone's focus on relationships and kills himself. Short story.
• A Fin-de-Siecle Invention
  Inventor creates a device that reads the criminal's mind for any crimes and displays the result on a meter.