Edgar Fawcett (1847–1904)

Published in 1889 in Lipincott's monthly magazine, this is a proto science fiction story. Edgar Fawcett was a fairly prolific novelist and poet: Wiki describe him as being successful in his time, but his works are mainly forgotten today. He tried his hand with several stories that today would be classified as science fiction and Solarion reads pretty well today. Fawcett's Solarion may well have been the first story about a super intelligent dog, certainly Olaf Stapledon scored a success with [Sirius] in 1944 and that novel owes something to Solarion apart from the fact that the name of the animals have some similarities and are the titles of the novels.

The novel is set in Switzerland where an American is pleased to have escaped the busy city life and his countrymen. While eating in a local restaurant he notices a man whose face is appallingly disfigured, almost half of it is missing; he discovers that he is a fellow American and Hugh Brookstayne is intrigued. Stafford the disfigured man finally agrees to tell his story. He was a keen scientist looking to find a connection between electricity and its possible effect on the mind. He tracked down a German scientist whose work was never published and used his theories to enhance the mind power of a specially selected breed of dog. Stafford succeeds beyond his expectations with Solarion, but encounters moral and philosophical problems that he had not foreseen. He is also in love with Celia who rejects his marriage proposal and life gets more complicated when Celia becomes besotted with Solarian.

The book describes itself as a Romance and there is a love story that holds it all together. Developments in electrical engineering in the late 19th century were quickly coming on stream and the story would hold some fascination for the imaginative reader. This together with the unexpected issues thrown up by questions of love and loyalty, by metaphysics and spiritualism takes this story along many avenues. In his conversations with Solarian (yes the dog can talk) Stafford tries to instruct him about love:

"It is a power that impulses incessantly through mankind. To some hearts it is a benign blessing; to others it is a frightful curse. Now while you and I speak together, there are men and women pale and tortured with the throews of its ungratified passion. Men when they feel it, cannot explain it, women can explain it still less.................... It is a perpetual comedy, a perpetual tragedy. It is always crowning mortals with roses, it is always dooming them to bottomless pits of torment........ "

The story has some mystery some imagination and it examines again the tropes of a man made monster; Solarion is doomed to a life of loneliness. Fawcett tells a good story and he examines themes that take it out of the well trodden paths of romance and adventure. Characterisation is also good and so 3.5 stars.… (altro)