The Master of Light

by Maurice Renard, Brian Stableford (Translator)

Overview

Often hailed as the best French science fiction writer of the early 20th century, Maurice Renard coined the term "Scientific Marvel Fiction" to pen a series of gripping, ground-breaking stories that owe as much to Edgar Allan Poe as they do to H.-G. Wells. Until now, Renard was best known to the English-speaking public for his thrice-filmed thriller, The Hands of Orlac. This is a series of five volumes, translated and annotated by Brian Stableford, devoted to presenting the classic works of this pioneering giant of French science fiction. The Master of Light (1933), anticipating Bob Shaw's notorious "slow glass" concept, is the tales of a vendetta and a murder mystery solved thanks to luminite, a glass-like substance which slows down light as it passes through, and through which one can actually witness the past.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940013876118
Publisher:	Black Coat Press
Publication date:	12/15/2011
Series:	French Science Fiction , #37
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	300
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

Influenced by Edgar Allan Poe and H.-G. Wells, Maurice Renard (-) often crossed the line between fantastique and science fiction, and yet developed a rational, lucid, logical approach to the supernatural. His Le Docteur Lerne - Sous-Dieu (1908) was dedicated to Wells. In it, a mad scientist transplanted not only organs between men and animals, but also between plants, and even machines. His 1911 novel, Le Péril Bleu, predating Charles Fort's Book of the Damned (1919), postulated the existence of invisible creatures living in the upper strata of the atmosphere who fish for men. It is, however, humanistic and tolerant in style rather than fearful and xenophobic philosophy. Renard's impact was even more considerable in the 1920s and 1930s, with Un Homme chez les Microbes (1928), one of the first scientific novels on the theme of miniaturization. One of his last works novels was Le Maître de la Lumière (1947) which anticipated Bob Shaw's notorious "slow glass" by introducing the concept of a glass that condensed time.