The Coming Race (1871)
By Edward Bulwer-Lytton
Cyborgs; Evolution; Speciation; Utopia
An evolved, superhuman community lives beneath the Earth's surface
While investigating a mine shaft, an American explorer stumbles down a passage that leads to the depths to Earth. He is rescued by a superhuman being with wings from an attack by a monstrous, crocodile-like creature. The child, who stands as tall as the narrator, is part of an evolutionarily advanced species called the Vril-ya, who have developed the power to control minds as well as a basic life force (vril) that is akin to nuclear power. Using their vril wands, which are devices that the Vril-ya control through specially evolved nerves, this species can decimate rival civilizations. The Vril-ya decide to keep the narrator as their guest, although some of their people see him as an inferior being who should die. The narrator is nonetheless able to survive in the society, and becomes a careful observer of their customs and principles. His life is put in danger, however, when one of the female Vril-ya, Zee, begins to desire him; the society’s elders fear the degeneration that might arise from their union, and decide to eliminate him. The females of this society are physically superior to the males, and are the instigators of the sexual selection process, which prevents the narrator from fully avoiding her advances. The narrator must escape this underground society in order to survive, and with Zee’s help, he is able to return to his society. Ultimately, he hopes his experiences will serve as warning to people on Earth, that this evolutionarily-superior race stands as an imminent threat lurking just below the ground.
Bulwer-Lytton writes this novel years before the mechanisms of genetics were understood in England, but his text has important implications for modern understandings of the relationship between genes and evolution. The Vril-ya fears about miscegenation resonate with contemporaneous Victorian fears about racial hybridity, which many social theorists and scientists believed could lead to degeneration of the human species. The true threat to humanity, though, proves to be inadequate evolutionary progress; the Vril-yas are a danger only so long as humans remain stalled in their evolution. If humans were to accelerate this process, they could fend off attacks from these potential rivals; this text indirectly asserts the advantages of progressive efforts through social programs like eugenics. Bulwer-Lytton creates a utopian society out of a species that has evolved by embracing the potential of machines; while this addresses his contemporaries’ anxieties about the impact of mechanical developments, Bulwer-Lytton actually describes a cyborg race that is a product of evolution rather than artificial manufacturing. This novel thus theorizes that under certain environmental conditions, cyborgs might naturally arise from the human species. The evolution of the Vril-ya appears concomitant with their sociopolitical freedoms, and this text works with current debates about the advantages of genetic engineering by indicating that evolution of the human species through genetic “improvement” might lead to social and political stability.
Evaluation: The novel’s plot occasionally seems unbalanced, moving from a rapid series of misadventures to dense descriptive passages detailing the Vril-ya culture. Bulwer-Lytton astutely reflects back on Victorian society the potential failings arising from a rejection of biological technologies.
– Natalie Champ