The Coming Race

A mining engineer descends through a chasm and stumbles into a vast underground world ruled by the Vril-ya, a serene and powerful race who long ago mastered a natural force they call Vril. This energy heals, destroys, and powers their machines, and it has made war and want obsolete. Among them women are the stronger sex and choose their own mates, a reversal the narrator finds both fascinating and unnerving. Bulwer-Lytton uses the fantasy to satirize Victorian faith in progress and democracy, hinting that this superior race may one day surface and displace humankind. Published in 1871, the book helped shape early science fiction and, oddly, later occult lore around the word Vril. Free to read in PDF and EPUB.