The Coming Race

The Coming Race
by Edward Bulwer-Lytton
read: 2012
Guardian 1000 Novels

Baron Edward Bulwer-Lytton's The Coming Race is another "Lost World" novel.  But The Coming Race is less of an adventure story a la King Solomon's Mines and more of an allegorical societal critique a la Brave New World.  The narrator discovers an underground society composed of humanoid creatures called "Vril-ya" who have mastery of "Vril," which is kind of like "The Force" from Star Wars.  As a consequence, they have moved beyond war, needing to provide for themselves on a day-to-day basis, and many of the other struggles in our day-to-day life.  Ultimately, Bulwer-Lytton doesn't really choose sides.  There are pieces of the Vril-ya society that challenge flaws in human society; for instance, the gender roles among the Vril-ya are almost flipped, and their society has interesting means of dealing with over-population and new settlements.  But like in Brave New World, the society's advancements have casualties, as art is rendered completely superfluous and the Vril-ya seem almost passionless.  This even-handedness makes The Coming Race thought-provoking.