JOHN JACOB ASTOR JOURNEYS INTO ANOTHER WORLD, Annotated

Journey in Other Worlds: A Romance of the Future is a science fiction novel by John Jacob Astor IV, which was published in 1894. The book gives a imaginary report of life in the year 2000. It contains copious conjecture about hi-tech inventions, including descriptions of a worldwide telephone system, solar power, air travel, and space travel to the planets of Saturn and Jupiter. The book goes into astonishing engineering undertakings such as damning the Arctic Ocean. Some of the technological advances dreamed up in the novel actually came into being, but others are so fantastic they are almost humorous, such as the Terrestrial Axis Straightening Company formed to adjust the Earth’s axial tilt.
In Astor's novel, the future United States is a world superpower, which did indeed come to pass. European nations have become mostly socialist, having sold most of their African colonies to the U.S.; and Canada, Mexico, and the countries of South America have requested annexation. Astor has the race problems encountered by America easily resolved by simply having the “dark elements” as he calls them “die out.”
Space travel is achieved through an anti-gravitational energy force. He presents Jupiter as a jungle world, with flesh-eating plants, vampire bats, giant snakes and mastodons, and flying lizards. There, Americans uncover great assets of utilizable resources such as iron, silver, gold, lead, copper, coal, and oil.
He pictures Saturn as a primeval world of silent spirits. The spirit beings there give the explorers a chilling prediction of their own deaths.
In addition to Astor’s science fiction novel, accounts of his fascinating life and death are presented.