I've mentioned science fiction classics before; I find them fascinating and fun. One of the interesting things about reading older books, especially science fiction books, is the author's take on what the future will be like. Some, such as Jules Verne, are meticulous in their efforts to ensure as much scientific accuracy as possible. Others, like E.E. 'Doc' Smith, are just out to write a rollicking good story, and the science is secondary. Depending on the author, the second type is usually more fun, although Jules Verne was a master at telling a great story while still talking about the science. He used the science as a backdrop, and while it was certainly accurate, it never got in the way of the actual story.
Some writers, unfortunately, aren't quite as good at that. I'd prefer not to mention names, but some writers think the science is the only thing that matters, and the plot (and characterization) are secondary concerns. That kind of story really isn't very fun to read. In fact, it's as boring as Mr. Yasnick's Grade 10 science class, and you don't even get the chance to burn the school down accidentally.
The fun part about reading the old authors, as I mentioned, is their take on the future. Edgar Rice Burroughs, who wrote some of the most fantastic stories ever, is known best for Tarzan and John Carter. But he also wrote a book during the First World War called 'Beyond Thirty.' It is a tale of a future where the Great War never actually ended, and America never got involved. Instead, America (and Asia) stayed out altogether, and cut off all contact with Europe and Africa, to the point of forbidding any vessel from traveling east of 30° E longitude (hence the title). The background is described in the first few pages, and the story takes place two centuries into the future (one century to us; it's the early 22nd century, and no one in the now-unified Americas has been across the Atlantic in over two hundred years.
Since it's Burroughs, it's a fun and exciting adventure, but it really gives a sense of what people thought of the First World War while it was going on. Some people believed that it would never really end, and that Europe would be engulfed in mortal combat forever. People forget that America was largely isolationist at the time; President Woodrow Wilson won re-election in 1916 by promising to keep America out of Europe's martial affairs. It wasn't until after the war that America changed its policy to a more interventionist one, culminating in the Cold War with the Soviets after the Second World War.
Burroughs tells a story of a naval vessel (which can fly, like a Heli-carrier from the Avengers movie) that gets damaged in a hurricane and can't divert its course, thus breaking the unbreakable law and going Beyond Thirty. They find a Europe that is utterly devastated, human beings living as primitive savages, London overrun by wildlife and tribesmen who remember nothing of their history, including the fact that they were at war with Germany (which also doesn't exist in recognizable form any longer). Of course, Burroughs couldn't conceive of some of the weapons that would exist less than forty years after he wrote Beyond Thirty, but he understood the devastation of industrialized war better than anyone else writing at the time. Even Tolkien, who lived through the Great War, didn't present that sense of destruction. Of course, the war actually did end by the time he started seriously writing about Middle-Earth, so he obviously had a different perspective than Burroughs, writing in 1916.
It's an obscure book, but it is public domain, so it's available online for free at places like Roy Glashan's Library. Surprisingly, Project Gutenberg doesn't have it (though they have a lot of other Burroughs titles in e-format). I recommend it; as I said, it's a Burroughs adventure, so it's got a lot of action. It's a short book, running at about one hundred pages on an e-reader, so you can finish it in a single day without much difficulty.
After you're done reading that, if you're looking for some more action and adventure, A Universe of Possibilities, my short-story anthology. There's plenty of action, adventure, and fun there, as well.
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