L'autre Monde

Author: Cyrano De Bergerac

We said earlier that Godwin's The Man in the Moone was one of the most influential works in the history of science fiction, and this is one of the earliest and most dramatic signs of that influence. Cyrano even appropriated Godwin's anti-hero, Domingo Gonsales, for this comic novel. Also known as The Comical History of the States and Empires of the Moon, the story concerns a luckless hero, also called Cyrano, who first attempts to reach the Moon by strapping bottles of dew to his body, which will help him to fly when the dew evaporates. This fails, so he builds a new device which also fails, but local soldiers affix rockets to the wreckage as part of a celebration, and the rockets shoot him off to the Moon. Here he meets strange, four-legged aliens, and a variety of figures including Domingo Gonsales, with whom he has satirical conversations about the state of the world. Why it's on the list: It's a bit of a stretch, but Arthur C. Clarke has claimed that this is the first appearance of rocket-powered space travel in fiction. Clarke also credits Cyrano with the invention of the ramjet. Even if you don't agree with Clarke, you have to admit that this is an extraordinary lunar fiction.