Ralph 124C 41
Ralph 124C 41 is a science fiction novel by Hugo Gernsback. It was published chapter by chapter from 1911 at the Modern Electrics magazine before it was first published in 1925 as a coherent book. Due to its consistent extrapolation it is considered one of the first modern SF works.
Content
The book's title " Ralph 124C 41 " is a pun. In English, it gives pronounced " Ralph one to ( two) foresee (four -c) for ( four) plus one ", ie " Ralph, one who foresees for another." The fact that the protagonist has this name to distinguish him as the inventor of prophetic genius.
Gernsback leads the reader to the world of the future year 2660th by technological progress, mankind has conquered poverty and disease and colonized other planets. Inventors are celebrated and envied. The most brilliant of them is a scientist named Ralph 124C 41 . One day Ralph calling with his Visiofon accidentally at an attractive Swiss woman named Alice 212B 423. The language barrier ( he only speaks English and French only ) overcome them with the help of simultaneous translators. They fall in love. When Ralph and Alice meet, Gernsback used the rendezvous as a means to give the reader almost bring the many advances in the fictional year 2660.
But Ralph has two rivals, the people Fernand 60O 10 and the Martians Llysanorh CK 1618th They kidnap Alice, and Ralph looking feverishly for the missing. Again the chase serves as an exposition of the future world. At the end there is a showdown, in which Ralph Alice in the end saves her from an avalanche by evaporating it with heat rays by remote control. It comes to a happy end and the two become a couple.
List of concepts
Gernsback used " Ralph 124C 41 " mainly as a means to imagine the world in the year 2660. There are many technical and social concepts described that at least conceivable were present in 1911 ( technical term: extrapolation), and also partially describes the social impact of these new inventions. The concepts are described by today's critics as " partially naive, but also surprisingly accurate ."
Gernsback saw inventions such as television, intercontinental flights, manned space flight, the solar cell, the Visiofon, the Maglev, the radar, the simultaneous translation, the electric motor, the fluorescent tube, the concept of financial viability, the fax, inter alia, expected, even if he z.T. used other names: he called, inter alia, the fax a " tele - autograph " or the radar a " polarized ether wave." Concepts from the book that were never built to date, have included the antigravity, invisibility, life on other planets, martians, and weather control.
Scientific Notes
From today's perspective, several Gern Backs assumptions are outdated. He goes in his book on the assumption that the light like the sound ( an ether ) requires a medium for propagation. This is now scientifically disproved. In addition, Gernsback interstellar travel with flying machines allows the main drive are rotating gyroscopes. On the idea of rockets used today he did not.
Assessment
" Ralph 124C 41 " due to its many extrapolations is regarded as one of the first modern science-fiction novels. Science Fiction Weekly called the work " at first glance cheesy and superficial", the plot as a " pretext for primitive scientific speculation" and pointed out that -be Backs work " was not kept free for some time lump sum as trashy literature ". However, it said that Gernsback on closer inspection " told with few means much ... much more often hits the nail on the head when not ... even if Ralph is too easy to control the game and the plot is superficial ."
This assessment is shared by SFSite.com. The main criticisms of the " thin, cut and dried " plot, but praised the "many interesting ideas and the infecting optimism ". Argues, History interesting gladly Backs "naive, but sometimes quite surprisingly apt forecasts", but it is emphasized due to the limited literary quality that it " has a reason that Gernsback was better known as a publisher than as a writer ."