[SFRA-L] Did a woman create science fiction?

[John Pierce]

On Aug 8, 2011, at 7:34 AM, John Pierce wrote:

> Here's the latest from my research assistant Dwight Decker:
>
> <<This is to let you know that I finally finished Guirlanden um die  
> Urnen der Zukunft, and that I'm working on a report for you. Yeah,  
> i know, it took a lot longer than it should have, and I made some  
> optimistic promises there...
>
> I can tell you this: it's basically a light romance. Airships and  
> "sun-globes" to illuminate a room are about the only technical  
> advances mentioned, and they aren't described in any detail. If  
> anything, the world described doesn't even seem as advanced as  
> 1800... it has a more medieval feeling.
>
> A woman must have written it! It has to have been a woman! The  
> central plot problem is that the hero's sister disappeared when she  
> was four years old and hasn't been seen since. Meanwhile, the hero  
> has grown to fine strapping manhood and has found a ladylove named  
> Lolly. His happiness is crushed when he finds Lolly in the arms of  
> his best friend. But out of respect for Lolly's wishes and out of  
> friendship for his best friend, he nobly decides to leave them to  
> their happiness and runs off to join the army to forget his sorrows  
> just as a war breaks out. What he doesn't know is that it wasn't  
> Lolly at all. His best friend has found a ladylove of his own -- a  
> different other girl named Jilla who just happens to resemble Lolly  
> in every detail, like twins. He also doesn't know that Jilla is his  
> long-lost sister turned up again after many years.
>
> Our hero ends up winning the war single-handedly. However, his  
> heroics aren't depicted on stage. They're summarized in the form of  
> a newspaper article read aloud at a wedding reception. The wedding  
> was of a soldier who had lost an arm and suffered a disfigured face  
> in the war, and the story's angle is on the bride, who is a German  
> woman proud of her new husband and proud of the sacrifice he made  
> for his country, as any German woman would be. It's war seen from  
> the woman's viewpoint.>>
>
>
> --J.J.P.
>
>

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