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Ralph 124C 41+: A Romance of the Year 2660

Hugo Gernsback,

Jack Williamson (Introduction)

2.83 · Rating details · 235 ratings · 40 reviews

By the year 2660, science has transformed and conquered the world, rescuing humanity from itself. Spectacular inventions from the farthest reaches of space and deep beneath the earth are available to meet every need, providing antidotes to individual troubles and social ills. Inventors are highly prized and respected, and they are jealously protected and lavishly cared for ...more

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Paperback, 322 pages

Published September 1st 2000 by Bison Books (first published 1911)

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Dec 23, 2009 Nicholas Whyte added it

http://nhw.livejournal.com/852938.html[return][return]Brian Aldiss blames Gernsback for taking sf away from the literary tradition established by Mary Shelley, and reading this, the Luxembourg-born author's only well-known work of fiction, I can see why Aldiss accuses Gernsback of "a deadening literalism"; and yet I can also understand why the Worldcon hands out Hugos rather than Shelleys.[return][return]This fairly short novel was written in 1911, and concerns Ralph 124C 41+, the greatest inven http://nhw.livejournal.com/852938.html[return][return]Brian Aldiss blames Gernsback for taking sf away from the literary tradition established by Mary Shelley, and reading this, the Luxembourg-born author's only well-known work of fiction, I can see why Aldiss accuses Gernsback of "a deadening literalism"; and yet I can also understand why the Worldcon hands out Hugos rather than Shelleys.[return][return]This fairly short novel was written in 1911, and concerns Ralph 124C 41+, the greatest inventor of his age, who one day meets the beautiful Alice as a result of a crossed videophone conversation, and saves her from an avalanche in distant Switzerland by remote control. He takes her on a tour of 27th century New York and rescues her from abduction and certain death in space at the hands of his rivals for her affections.[return][return]Of course the narrative (such as it is) is interrupted frequently by breathless descriptions of the technical advances of the year 2660. Some of these (e.g. radar and solar panels) are now familiar to us in 2007, while in some cases one wonders why he didn't take the idea a step further (you can watch live broadcasts from Europe, and phone calls use video as a matter of course, but no mention of video recording of any kind - and this was written several years after the dawn of cinema).[return][return]No robots (still nine years before apek invented them in R.U.R.), and perhaps more unexpectedly no rockets - space flight happens via antigravity. (Robert Goddard only began his rocket experiments that same year, 1911; Tsiolkovsky had been writing on the subject for decades, but I don't know how well know his work was in the English-speaking world.)[return][return]Yet Gernsback's most spectacular miss is in his failure to understand how technology would revolutionise society. Ralph's sleep is enlivened by a recording of Homer's Odyssey; his manservant puts it on for him. Ralph's dictation machine means that his secretary can devote her time to other things, not that he can dispense with her services. As noted above, we hear a lot about live entertainment, but not much about other forms of literature. The technicalities of how the newspaper of 2660 is produced and read are described in detail; its contents are not.[return][return](And Gernsbach's asteroids have atmospheres.)[return][return]Still, I can find a lot more forgiveness for him than Brian Aldiss did: for me, Gernsbach's enthusiasm makes up for his desperately clunky prose. And I love the line, "Martians in New York were not sufficiently rare to excite any particular comment." ...more

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Oct 17, 2017 Leothefox rated it really liked it

This 1911 work of science fiction is a building block in the genre and in many ways it was worth the read. The book is largely a series of predictions about scientific progress in future centuries including entertainment, agriculture, medicine, and space travel. It's all pulled together with a romance as the world renowned scientist of the title shows his new girlfriend around future New York.

In reading this I found myself drawing comparisons with another early science-fiction work, namely “Acr This 1911 work of science fiction is a building block in the genre and in many ways it was worth the read. The book is largely a series of predictions about scientific progress in future centuries including entertainment, agriculture, medicine, and space travel. It's all pulled together with a romance as the world renowned scientist of the title shows his new girlfriend around future New York.

In reading this I found myself drawing comparisons with another early science-fiction work, namely “Across the Zodiac” by Percy Greg. Both books are concerned with a romance and with a travelogue depicting various inventions. Both books meander and only begin to engage in plot about halfway through. “Across the Zodiac” is not widely read either, but it is one of the reasons I truly appreciated Gernsback's book. Greg's book is a 600 page reactionary rant in the form of a sci-fi novel, but Gernsback's is a fast and light slogan for progress.

“Ralph 124C 41+” is an optimistic work of speculative fiction that isn't afraid to engage in what sometimes appears to be an endless list of advancements and inventions. The hero is a genius, such a genius that he has the rare plus sign on the end of his name. In many ways, this is the kind of fiction we write when we are very young and want to smart, liked, strong, and to win and be loved for winning. This isn't a problem for me as a reader, that's just what comes with reading genre fiction from that time and place. The starry-eyed optimism is its own appeal.

The book has sentient life on Mars, electric skates, invisibility machines, rockets and rayguns, weird predictions that are awesome for not coming true, a man-of-action hero who knows it all and lets you know it, action, romance, and some fun turns.

Is this great storytelling? Probably not, but that's fine too. I kinda wish somebody like Burroughs had jumped in and punched it up, since very often a sustained narrative is wanted. However, flawed as it is, the book is too quick to really get boring and the parade of predictions and strange ideas carries with it a sideshow appeal.

The book opens with a genius in New York accidentally meeting a lady in Switzerland via a TV-phone mix-up and proceeds to save her from an avalanche with rays. How sweet is that? ...more

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Nov 26, 2018 Warren Fournier rated it liked it

Shelves: radium-age-science-fiction

Like his contemporary John Campbell, Gernsback was a visionary and a businessman more than a writer. His novel circulated in one of his electronics publications in order to stimulate the imaginations of the kinds of folks he assumed would be reading such things: tinkerers, problem-solvers, do-it-yourselfers, engineers, scientists, and investors. He hoped to find tomorrow's inventors. Therefore, this novel is really just exposition on what kinds of things he wanted in his magazines. And that's ex ...more

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Sep 12, 2017 Rebecca rated it did not like it · review of another edition

I put this on "Want to Read" because there wasn't a slot for "tried and hated it." I usually never give up reading something I've started. But life is too short to read this. The copy I have (a reprint from 1958) lauds it as "prophetic" and says that no one since Jules Verne has done such a good job forecasting the future.

Well, about 25% of the way in, I can say that the author seems completely wrong about almost everything (except video communication). The women are fluffy and unrealistic. The ...more

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Jun 05, 2015 Benjamin rated it did not like it

Some might consider Gernsback the founding figure of American science fiction (the Hugo Awards are named after him). This would be due to his launching popular general science and pulp fiction magazines in the early 1900s rather than his skill as a writer.

Ralph 124C 41+ is one of the earliest American science fiction novels and is firmly in the "techno-utopia" vision in which the plot is merely a device to extend the catalog of inventions and predictions. Some of his ideas have come true - solar ...more

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Feb 13, 2015 Mike rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: partly-read, singularity-and-co

I remember reading about this book in histories of SF. No doubt groundbreaking for its time, it's heavy on the infodumps, and the plot is minimal and predictable. The sole female character (as far as I got - I was too bored to continue past 69%) is there to be an object of male fantasy, a McGuffin, and someone to infodump to, rather than a person in her own right.

All of the speculation is about technological rather than sociological change, though Gernsback must have lived through sociological ...more

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Apr 12, 2019 Sonic rated it it was ok · review of another edition

This really is terrible. Starts off with some good predictions, then mansplains the future forever.

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Feb 23, 2013 Roddy Williams rated it liked it

Shelves: science-fiction, pre-golden-age, bison-books

‘By the year 2660, science has transformed and conquered the world, rescuing humanity from itself. Spectacular inventions from the farthest reaches of space and deep beneath the earth are available to meet every need, providing antidotes to individual troubles and social ills. Inventors are highly prized and respected, and they are jealously protected and lavishly cared for by world governments. That support and acclaim, however – as the most brilliant of scientists Ralph 124c 41+, discovers – i ‘By the year 2660, science has transformed and conquered the world, rescuing humanity from itself. Spectacular inventions from the farthest reaches of space and deep beneath the earth are available to meet every need, providing antidotes to individual troubles and social ills. Inventors are highly prized and respected, and they are jealously protected and lavishly cared for by world governments. That support and acclaim, however – as the most brilliant of scientists Ralph 124c 41+, discovers – is not without its price.’

Blurb from the Bison Books 2000 commemorative edition.

Nearly a hundred years on from Gernsback’s first version of this quirky novel in 1911, it re-emerges between the lavish covers of this Bison Books commemorative edition, a facsimile – or at least the interior of the book is – of the 1925 book publication complete with the original full-page illustrations by Frank R Paul.
Hugo is often referred to as ‘the grandfather of SF’, or at least the grandfather of American SF, being the founder of Amazing Stories, and is credited, among other things, with the invention of the phrase ‘science fiction’, reduced from the rather cumbersome ‘scientifiction’. Allegedly, he is also the first person to use the word ‘television’ and, in his own way within this novel, predicts many of the things which – albeit existing in very different form – we take for granted today.
In the year 26660, Ralph 124C 41+ is, as denoted by the plus sign suffix to his name, one of the top ten scientists in the world, and as such is forbidden to engage in anything potentially injurious.
During a ‘telephot’ call (a telephot being a kind of videophone) he gets a misdirected call from an Alice of Switzerland and – having saved her from an avalanche by a remarkable procedure involving the erection of antennae and a concentration of rays – the two fall in love.
Unfortunately Alice has other admirers; the swarthy and brutal Fernand and Llysanorh’, a depressed Martian.
Most of the novel is taken up with Alice and her father visiting Ralph at his New York home and laboratory from whence Ralph takes them on a tour, demonstrating to them the wonders of the modern world (which obviously in 2660 does not include Switzerland).
As Jack Williamson points out in his introduction to this volume, the narrative is, in the main, a travelogue, being a device by which Gernsback can show the development of science in this strange Utopia.
Like many of today’s authors Gernsback takes no account of the possibility of social change in 600 years and so we are presented with a future of Edwardian manners and attitudes which is exacerbated by Paul’s artwork, particularly in the case of the frontispiece ‘The Face in the Telephot’ which shows Ralph gazing into a screen on which appears the face of Alice, sporting a fetching Nineteen Twenties hairstyle and a Gardenia behind one ear.
The telephot itself looks rather like some installation from an early submarine. Oddly this strange displacement of visual and cultural memes gives the book a ‘steampunk’ flavour and one cannot help but be bowled along by Gernsback’s obvious verve and enthusiasm for a world in which man is set free by technology. It is churlish to point out that Ralph’s ‘Man’, Peter, has not yet been set free, presumably because Ralph has not yet invented a mechanical valet.
Alice too, when she is kidnapped by the evil Fernand, is provided with a personal maid.
Gernsback however, is concerned only with scientific – rather than social – advancement, although even here, for dramatic expediency, he is willing to sacrifice extrapolated scientific development for what is essentially sheer fantasy. ...more

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Sep 04, 2013 Steve Joyce rated it liked it · review of another edition

Wonder!! ...why in the world Martians can't marry Earthlings!

Awe!! ...is not what you'll experience when you read of Ralph 124C 41+ showing Alice 212B 423 around Wheat Farm No. D1569!

Amazement!! ...will fill your mind if your tired eye-balls make it to the end of this novel!

If Hugo Gernsback had promoted his own fiction in the first pages of Amazing Stories instead of that of H. G. Wells, Jules Verne and Edgar Allen Poe, one has to question just how far the newly-dubbed genre would have caught o ...more

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Oct 27, 2014 Wreade1872 rated it really liked it

Shelves: league-of-extraordinary-gentlemen, 1910s, science-fiction, pulps

A pulpy sci-fi romance. The first half is really just a tour of New York circa 2660 and a chance to show off various sci-fi inventions. Its quite interesting if a little dry at times. The second-half is more devoted to the romance adventure, as Ralph has to deal with two rivals who are in love with his girlfriend. Its surprisingly gripping and with a real sense of danger.
The sci-fi stuff is mostly based on outmoded scientific principals but that didn't bother me. A small complaint, it would ha ...more

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Jun 15, 2020 Paul Waring rated it did not like it

Shelves: mcrsf

A strong contender for the worst book I've ever read. Sexist (helpless female protagonist who falls in love with genius scientist immediately), racist (antagonists are a Martian and a man whose only description is that he is black, and is referred to as 'that black man', frightening etc.) and spectacularly tedious. Yes, the author made some guesses ('predictions' is too strong a word) about future developments which turned out to be accurate, but given the numbers involved a few matches were ine ...more

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Jan 10, 2016 John rated it did not like it

Historical curiosity, leaden prose, some interesting predictions, amusing portmanteaus. The scene at the Appetizer has to be read to be believed.

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Sep 22, 2019 Ronnie rated it did not like it

Shelves: for-school, dystopia-and-scifi

Never again! Some books really don't stand the test of time. Read for a wild sexist, racist, misogynistic adventure! ...more

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Jan 13, 2019 Matthew Hunter rated it liked it

Shelves: science-fiction

I’m conflicted. On the one hand, Ralph 124C 41+: A Romance of the Year 2660 is nothing but a cheesy romance with an over-abundance of scientific infodumps. The pollyannish view of technological progress is at best naive, and at worst willfully ignorant of science’s dark side. I like a good utopia as much as the next guy, but feel free to include at least a splash of realism.

On the other hand, Ralph 124C 41+: A Romance of the Year 2660 is a masterpiece of American science fiction. The World Scien ...more

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Jun 12, 2018 Lisa rated it liked it

Sci Fi is definitely not my normal fare, I read this as it was mentioned in a media literacy course.
The sci fi descriptions were interesting...especially the bit about news being personalized.
The story wasn't bad either...though a lot of time was spent in explaining how the sciencey aspects of the futuristic society worked. It was like 2 books were going, the one about Ralph and his love interest and the one about an imagined New York society. It's interesting reading when you note that it was ...more

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Dec 28, 2019 Rocco Frontuto rated it it was ok

Shelves: read-in-2019

This was a book I had to read for a college class (Science Fiction & The Human Dynamic) and it was fascinating to get a chance to read early sci fi, or more specifically to see what predictions Hugo Gernsback made in this that ended up being true. It was mostly about the technology and less about the characters for this story, but that makes sense given Hugo's background and his overall goal with writing/publishing. ...more

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Feb 07, 2021 BJ Haun rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: novel

I suppose back in 1911 when this book was written the explanation of all the "science" stuff might have been interesting...not so much a century later. At least not for me. Once I started just kind of glancing over the explantion of the technology and science, all I was left with was a lackluster plot that went about exactly how you would expect it to. ...more

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Jul 18, 2020 penwing rated it did not like it

Shelves: sci-fi, mcrsf, 2020

Don't bother. For the love of God, don't bother - it's awful... ...more

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Nov 06, 2017 Duane Miller rated it liked it · review of another edition

What was the first science fiction novel? Many would say Frankenstein: The 1818 Text. But a lot of readers today think of sci-fi as being related to envisioning a future with new, exotic technologies. And if that is indeed essential to sci-fi then this book is in fact the first ever sci-fi novel. Beginning in 1911 the book started being published as a series of short stories but the author eventually brought them all together in this one book. It does have fantastic technologies--personal space ...more

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Dec 29, 2013 Fred Hughes rated it liked it

Ralph is a genius. Without ever having met him you can tell that by the + at the end of his name. Only 10 people in the world have the + designation in their name.

Ralph is in love with Alice and no other person, or event can distract him from that love.
However Alice has two other suitors who are just as enamoured of her namely: Fernand another inventor and Llysanorh, the Martian.

After saving Alice’s life it was only natural that Alice and her father should visit Ralph to thank him in person.

From ...more

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Jul 26, 2018 Christopher Steinsvold rated it it was amazing

Easy five stars, though this book is not for most.

Beyond simple enjoyment, I think a novel should be judged on its merits. What was it trying to do, and how well did it do it? In this novel, the author is trying to predict the future. This is the main point of the novel. Hugo Gernsback, writing in 1911, is trying to figure out what the world will be like in 2660. If that doesn't interest you, you likely should not pick up this book.

In the edition I have, there are four prefaces, each one discu ...more

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Dec 25, 2007 Christopher Weck rated it liked it

Wacky, wacky, wacky. Pretty pulpy but brimming with optimistic ideas about future technologies and their transformative effects on society, albeit many based on science long since discredited (creating an 'ether vacuum' to stop light, anyone?). Sometimes it almost reads like a compendium of future tech rather than a narrative, but that's not so bad in the end.

Despite its narrative clumsiness and melodramatic center, there is something I found irresistible about the thing as a whole. Sure, its na ...more

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Apr 06, 2011 Walter Underwood rated it really liked it

My son loved this book, even though it was written nearly a hundred years ago and that shows in the style and vocabulary. Gernsback was totally caught up in the wonders of the year 2660 and that somehow connected. I have a soft spot for visions of the future written in the past, and this one is from 1911, so it is even more fun. It is mostly a travelogue of the future, but there is enough plot to keep it moving.

Be sure to get the edition from the Bison Books Frontiers of Imagination series becau ...more

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Aug 31, 2007 Pete rated it liked it

quirky as hell. reads like a comic book, or really a serialized adventure story, which is the way it was originally published. if you can wade through the hokey
romance and silly plot-lines, what you have is an account
of the really fertile imagination of an inventor who
managed to predict (alongside others, but presented
here entertainingly) the advent of things like
radiation therapy, video-conferencing,
cell phones, hot-house farming,
sleep-learning, and even
pay-per-view! have fun.

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Oct 11, 2017 Lucy Takeda rated it liked it · review of another edition

I grant this a 3 rather than a 2 because it provides some interesting history of SF.
The novel was begone as a serial on Gernsback's magazine dedicated to inventions back in the early 1900's. there are numerous scientific explanations involving radium, electricity, magnets, and ether that have essentially been proven wrong. Most of the novel involves explanations of possible inventions intertwined with a campy romance. I bought it; I would not recommend anyone do that, unless they are really intr ...more

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Jan 16, 2018 Griffin Files rated it liked it · review of another edition

At surface level Ralph 124C 41+ is nothing spectacular, it's cheesy, cliché and filled with potentially mind blurring run on sentances of scientific descriptions, but if you look at things from a different perspective you realize that this book represents something far more grand, it was one of the forerunners of the sci-fi genre, and the author amazingly predicted many real technological innovations, so even if Ralph 124C 41+ isn't exactly a brilliant piece of literature nowadays, I think it de ...more

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Jan 28, 2015 Pedro rated it liked it · review of another edition

Seminal scifi written by one of the fathers of modern scifi, he gives name to the Hugo awards. The story is an excuse for a showcase of future technologies, is funny to see in which things he has been pretty close and the names of it , on the other hand there are signals from when it was written , the reference to ether, everything works with electricity , is an easy and enjoyable read. An ebook edition recovered thanks to "save the scifi": http://singularity.co/ ...more

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May 10, 2015 Ian J rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: sf

According to some people, for example, Gary Westfahl, Ralph 124C41+ (henceforth Ralph) is one of the most significant science fiction books of all time. Given its context – the year it was written, what had come before – I can understand why it’s thought of in that way. Is it one of the greatest science fiction stories of all time? Far from it!
https://theforgottengeek.wordpress.co... ...more

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Jul 11, 2020 Maureen rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Incredible

The prophetic nature of this story is astonishing. Gernsback imagined headphones, flying cars, space ships, zero G, radio communication between ships and planets, terraforming, cryosleep (but with heat), planetary growth, television, video chatting, AND the internet! All in one book!

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Jan 15, 2015 Delena Obermaier added it

If you like world building or if you're interested in early Sci-Fi, it's an interesting book, but be warned there is no story. It's basically just Ralph telling you about all the cool shit that exists in the future. Read it more as a history lesson in Sci-Fi literature than as a good book....cause you'll probably get mad at quite a bit of the lack of character/plot. ...more

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About Hugo Gernsback

Hugo Gernsback

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Hugo Gernsback (August 16, 1884 – August 19, 1967), born Hugo Gernsbacher, was a Luxembourgian-American inventor, writer, editor, and magazine publisher, best remembered for publications that included the first science fiction magazine. His contributions to the genre as publisher were so significant that, along with H. G. Wells and Jules Verne, he is sometimes popularly called "The Father of Scien ...more