Ralph 124C 41+

Critique • Quotes

The future that once was

Finding a copy of Hugo Gernsback's science fiction novel Ralph 124C 41+ has been a cause of both delight and disappointment.

Delight because this strangely titled book was said to be a semi-rare classic, by one of the genre's most influential writers and editors, sometimes called the "father of science fiction" whose first name is given to science fiction's most prestigious award.

Disappointment because it's atrocious.

The bad writing can't be chalked up to being an early effort (first published in 1911) in creating the speculative fiction field. The way had already been shown by Jules Verne, H.G. Wells and others who incorporated scientific discovery and advanced technology into grippingly plotted and populated stories.

A case may be made for Ralph 124C 41+ being one of the first American science fiction works, though even this does not excuse all the novel's failings.

Gernsback once said what he called "scientifiction" was one quarter science and three-quarters fiction. But most of his writing in Ralph (I can't be bothered to keep trying to remember the full title) reverses these proportions. Page after page of densely detailed descriptions of inventions hang from the flimsiest of narratives and shallowest of characters.

Techno romance

It's no surprise to learn Ralph's first appearance was in a technical magazine, also founded by Gernsback.

The covers of some later publications of the novel call it a "Romance of the year 2660" and picture a couple, communicating via a videophone device.

But the courting of Ralph 124C 41+ and Alice 212B 423 is laughably unromantic. They spend most of their time together marvelling over his inventions and touring New York's technological achievements.

Readers of Gernsback's time are meant to be impressed with his predictions of the wonders of science. From our perspective, some of these have already proven prescient. But some still seem far off and we'll have to wait another six centuries to see if they come about. And some have already flopped.

Among his misses are devices that nullify gravity's "electromagnetic manifestation of the ether"—ignorant of science's discarding of the ether and the understanding of gravity as curved space-time.

Interspersed with Ralph's lectures to the ever-receptive Alice are occasional nods to his growing romantic feelings, expressed in geeky purplish prose.

Heretofore engrossed in his work, his scientific mind had been oblivious to women. They had played no part in his life. Science had been his mistress, and a laboratory his home.

And now, in one short half hour, for him the whole world had become a new place. Two dark eyes, a bewitching pair of lips, a voice that had stirred the very core of his being—

The novel's storyline, as much as it exists, mainly involves our hero using his science smarts to repeatedly save his beloved—from an avalanche, from a stalker, from a kidnapping Martian, and finally from death itself.

The romance of scientism

But having heard all these criticisms of Ralph 124C 41+, you may still find the book useful as a kind of literary and sociological research.

It gives you an insight into the early development of science fiction—American science fiction anyway—that took as a given the ultimate triumph of science and technology over all human difficulties. Rightly or wrongly, this scientism has been an influential trend in science fiction right through to today.

And not just in fiction. Ralph 124C 41+ gives you an idea of the wide-eyed optimism with which many once greeted the technological achievements of the western world—the excitement with which many people of Gernsback's time must have faced the future.

It's a romantic notion of science that has largely dissipated, though the spark of truth in it is still worth keeping alive.

— Eric

 

Critique • Quotes

See also:

A Journey to the Centre of the Earth

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court

Slan

I, Robot

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