Vril: The Power of the Coming Race [Facsimile] [Paperback]

Edward Lytton (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 1997

Vril is mankind's occult power of the future, and the kind of life and society created by its use. This book vividly describes Vril in vivid, prophetic, detail. Written over 120 years ago, in 1871, by the author of the Rosicrucian novel, Zanoni.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 248 pages
• Publisher: Kessinger Publishing, LLC; Facsimile of 1871 ed edition (September 1, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0766101053
• ISBN-13: 978-0766101050
• Product Dimensions: 10.5 x 8.7 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,099,803 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A fantastic world like you've never dreamed of before!, June 27, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Vril: The Power of the Coming Race (Paperback)

This book, although written over one hundred years ago by Lord Lytton, contains some of the most futuristic thinking I've ever read about. I read the book in 2 days and was glued to it by the suspense and captivated by the fascination of the society described in it. The story is about a man who stumbles upon an unknown society, living underground, which lead their lives by the principles of VRIL, a life force that is all powerful and healing yet capable of utter destrucion. Every person in this society has the power of this force from birth on and is thus capable of destroying any of his fellow men. This forced the society, named Vrilya, to evolve into a perfect utopian harmony where everyone posesses free will and is completely tolerant of each other.

Written in first person from the view point of the man who discovered them, the book is written in an easy to read language. It relays satiric undertones regarding democracy and imperialism and contains many ideas of anthroposophy, including the Vrilya belief of life after death. The Vrilya are shown to be a more evolved human race, by many thousand years, and are believed to have descended from survivors of the Great Flood, who as a result fled underground. It shows what the future may look like for us, but hinges on the discovery and mastery of the life force, VRIL. Although there seem to be some inconsistencies in the description and behavior of the soceity, they were not grave enough to keep me from reading more. This book should be read by anyone who likes books like 1984, The Brave New World or even A Wrinkle in Time. Unlike the books just mentioned, Vril: The Power of the Coming Race, displays a fundamentally different view of our possible future. A future not ruled by authoritarians or Big Brother, or drugs or reward and punishment, but a future that requires everyone to live peacefully and happily through the consequences of their own power.

All in all, the story is sure to captivate and when keeping in mind when it was written, it is all the more amazing. I loved it, because it made me think about how we live today and the way we could live together without the negatives of our society. It also made me think about how we (The United States) should behave as the most "advanced" country on earth. I was also fascinated by the potential of the human race which we don't realize in every day life. I am sure anyone who reads this great book will love it too.

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Vril:the Power of the Coming Race, March 29, 2000

By 

Andrew Brown (Cambridge, England) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Vril: The Power of the Coming Race (Paperback)

One of the earliest science fiction novels in English, *The Coming Race* was published in 1871 and became an immediate bestseller (it ran through 8 editions in its first 18 months and was later reprinted with the title *Vril: the Power of the Coming Race*). It tells the story of an American mining engineer who descends into the center of the earth and encounters a humanoid subterranean people whose extraordinary technological and telekinetic power proceeds from their control of a mysterious energy called "vril." Through the power of vril they are able to fly, effortlessly move huge objects, and even destroy their enemies from a great distance (by what amounts to an early version of guided missiles). With such immense power freely available to all, war has become a practical impossibility among the subterraneans, who content themselves instead with perfecting their intellectual and artistic accomplishments. However, much in the manner of certain episodes of *Startrek* (a hundred years later), their serene superiority is shown to be inimical to all that is most truly creative in the human spirit. Without human passions, without human strife, the subterraneans's existence is shown to run counter to the most fundamental aspects of the human condition. It is a frightening prospect, therefore, that they believe their destiny is to return to the surface of the earth (whence they had descended, aeons before, during the Biblical flood) to supplant the inferior races living there -- hence they are the *coming* race. The author of the book, Edward Bulwer Lytton, one of the most popular of all Victorian novelists (who in 1866 had been raised to the peerage as Baron Lytton of Knebworth) declared that one of his main aims was to satirise the Darwinian biology of *The Origin of Species* and the political ideals of John Stuart Mill's *The Emancipation of Women*. Accordingly,the novel contains amusing pseudo-scientific passages on the supposed evolution of the subterraneans -- who believe they are descended not from apes but from frogs -- and some rather heavy-handed gender reversal, whereby the subterranean women are larger, stronger, more dominant (and hairier) than the men. Though aspects of the novel now seem labored and unsubtle, it remains a fascinating book in its mid-Victorian vision of dystopian science and politics. Its most unlikely claim to fame? It was so successful that the word vril briefly entered the language (see OED), signifying a strength-giving elixir. The household name (at least in the UK) of the beef extract product "Bovril," first marketed in the early 1880s, is a composite of the words "bovine" and "vril". Few, if any, novels can claim so commercial an influence! Highly recommended.

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars STRANGE..., September 25, 2004

By 

Boyd Rice (denver, co.) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Vril: The Power of the Coming Race (Paperback)

Strange how many early science fiction writers spun yarns dealing with an odd subterranean race dwelling within the earth. This was the first, essentially. Such myths, however, are found in most cultures... Tibet, Ireland, South America, native Americans & so on. Bulwer Lyton is a strange writer, & this an interesting read...