Greg, Percy (1836–1889)

English poet, novelist, and historian who wrote a number of science fiction tales, including Across the Zodiac: The Story of a Wrecked Record (1880). This was possibly the first story to involve a powered spaceship (the craft in Jules Verne's early Moon yarn having being shot out of a huge cannon). Greg describes a propulsion system based on "apergy" – an antigravity-like force. Arriving on a Lowellian Mars, the protagonist finds a race of technically advanced humanoids, one of whom he marries (qualifying the book perhaps for another SF first) though it all ends unhappily when his martian bride is killed.

Related category

• SCIENCE FICTION

Also on this site:

Encyclopedia of Alternative Energy & Sustainable Living
Encyclopedia of History

BACK TO TOP