Armageddon—2419 A.D.

Philip Francis NowlanProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.6

Word count: 157K words
Chapters: 16

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Armageddon—2419 A.D. by Philip Francis NowlanAuthor: Nowlan, Philip Francis, 1888-1940,Language: English, Class: PS: Language and Literatures: American and Canadian literature, Release Date: May 26, 2010

Editor's review

Armageddon—2419 A.D. is an early science fiction novella by Philip Francis Nowlan, published in the late 1920s and the original text from which the later Buck Rogers series grew. Set in the year 2419, the story follows a protagonist who wakes from a long sleep to find North America transformed—ruled by an outside power, with its technology and social structure utterly changed—and is drawn into a resistance movement. Its value lies first in its place in science fiction history: the work combines the "awakening from sleep" premise with a future dystopia, advanced weapons, and an underground society, influencing a great many later space-adventure and future-awakening narratives. The prose is typical pulp-magazine style—fast-paced, full of action—and its ideas carry the limitations of its era; readers should approach it as a sample of early twentieth-century popular science fiction rather than as strict hard SF. As a public-domain e-book it is short enough to read in one sitting and then revisit to discuss its technological imagination and social assumptions.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers interested in early science fiction history and the pulp-magazine tradition
Science fiction fans who want to know the source of the Buck Rogers series
Learners who need a short English science fiction text for reading practice
Readers who enjoy future-awakening adventure stories about resistance against rulers

Not a good fit for

Readers expecting rigorous hard SF with detailed technological extrapolation
People sensitive to early twentieth-century depictions of race and society
Readers hoping for a long work with fully built worldbuilding

Reading tips

Read it first as a sample of 1920s popular science fiction, noting how its premise influenced later works.
Watch for the period traces in its technological imagination and social views, and make brief critical notes afterward.
The English text is short; read it in two or three sittings, retelling the plot after each to reinforce understanding.
If you enjoy it, look for later stories in the same series and compare how the characters and premise evolve.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

What is the connection between this book and Buck Rogers?

This novella is the original text of the Buck Rogers series: the premise of a protagonist who wakes from sleep, finds himself in a future North America, and sets out on adventure originates here, and later comics, radio dramas, and film and television adaptations all built on it.

Is this hard science fiction?

No. It is popular science fiction in the early twentieth-century pulp-magazine style, focused on adventure pacing and a future setting; its technological descriptions do not aim at rigorous extrapolation, so readers should not judge it by hard SF standards.

How difficult is the English, and is it suitable for learning English?

The language is generally plain and the sentence structures are not complex, though it contains some old-fashioned expressions and technical terms of the period. Intermediate English readers can finish it with a dictionary; it works well as short extensive reading material, but is not recommended as a model for close grammatical study.

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About the author

Philip Francis Nowlan Author · American · 1888–1940

Philip Francis Nowlan (1888–1940) was an American science fiction writer. Public information about him is limited, and few details of his life are widely circulated; his literary reputation rests mainly on the series of adventure stories featuring Buck Rogers. His representative work, Armageddon—2419 A.D., imagines a protagonist who falls into a centuries-long slumber, wakes in the America of A.D. 2419, and joins the resistance. Its sequel, The Airlords of Han, continues the same setting and further develops the conflict between humanity and its rulers. These two works are boldly imaginative and tightly plotted, with a strong flavor of popular adventure fiction. The figure of Buck Rogers was later adapted into a comic strip and then expanded into radio, film, and other media, becoming one of the iconic characters of early American science fiction popular culture. Two of his works are included in this collection.