The Time Machine, Brave New World, 1984: these weren’t the first dystopian novels. There's an interesting history of Victorian and Edwardian literature looking at the impact of modernity on humans and finding it worrying.
Today in pulp I look at some early dystopian books…
Paris in the Twentieth Century, written in 1863, was the second novel penned by Jules Verne. However his publisher Pierre-Jules Hetzel rejected it as too gloomy. The manuscript was only discovered in 1994 when Verne’s grandson hired a locksmith to break into an old family safe.
The novel, set in 1961, warns of the dangers of a utilitarian culture. Paris has street lights, motor cars and the electric chair but no artists or writers any more. Instead industry and commerce dominate and citizens see themselves as cogs in a great economic machine.
In January 1919 a new magazine heralded the dawn of the Weimar era. Its aesthetic was a kind of demented Jugendstil, and its stories were dark gothic fantasies.
This is the story of Der Orchideengarten...
Der Orchideengarten: Phantastische Blätter (The orchid garden: fantastic pages) is probably the first ever fantasy magazine. Published in Munich by Dreiländerverlag, a trial issue appeared in 1918 before the first full 24 page edition was published in January 1919.
"The orchid garden is full of beautiful - now terribly gruesome, now satirically pleasing - graphic jewelery" announced the advanced publicity. It was certainly a huge departure from the Art Nouveau of Jugend magazine, which German readers were already familiar with.
If stock photography has taught us one thing it's how to recognise a hacker! But how much do we really know about these shady characters, with their ill-fitting balaclavas and their Windows 7 laptops?
Here's my essential stock photography guide to cybersecurity...
First things first, hacking has come on leaps and bounds in the last few years. Backing up your sensitive data on C60 cassette and labelling it "Flock of Seagulls Megamix' is no longer enough to keep your information safe!
And hackers are actually very hard to spot. That's because they dress head-to-toe in black (or very very very dark grey) since they live on the Dark Web and want to blend into the background.