A Fortune From the Sky was written by “Skelton Kuppord,” the pseudonym of Sir John Adams (1857-1934), who was a Scottish clergyman and professor at London University. Adams wrote several novels, including juveniles and school stories.

A Fortune from the Sky begins when a homeless Englishman named Fred Gurleigh happens upon a street fight between two old men, one trying to take a valise away from the other. Gurleigh breaks it up, allowing one of the men to escape. The other, who managed to retain his valise, arranges a clandestine meeting with Gurleigh. Gurleigh gets into trouble with the police over this but eventually breaks away from the police and makes the meeting. He discovers that the man with the valise is actually the prominent scientist Professor Welligham. Welligham has made a great scientific discovery, but his French rival, Professor Frisaine, is trying to take it away from him. England is threatened with war by the “Russo-French Coalition,” and Frisaine wants to use Welligham’s invention for the Coalition. So Welligham hires Gurleigh to protect him. Welligham’s discovery is “panergon,” a miracle energy source which when channeled through another of Welligham’s inventions can do nearly anything. But Welligham lacks the funds necessary to buy the chemicals to produce panergon. Even without the panergon the machine can still perform any number of wonders, including producing "secondary electricity," which can control projected light. Gurleigh keenly remembers his homeless state and is fixated on money, and he immediately sees the potential for profit in this invention. He has the idea to use panergon to write advertisements across the skies, and he sells the idea to the business world. As a result the skies over the British Isles are covered, for four hours, with advertisements for liver pills. Unfortunately the side effects of this use of “secondary electricity” are a massive lightning storm and nausea in those caught beneath the sky-writing. Sky ads are outlawed, but by then Welligham has gained enough money to continue his work.

Welligham discovers that Frisaine has bought up all the chemicals he needs, so Gurleigh travels to America to sell the sky-writing idea there and buy the chemicals there. He does so with the help of a business syndicate, but when he returns to England he discovers that Welligham has set the panergon machine to create two lines of energy, one around his apartment and one around England. The energy paralyzes those who move their limbs through it; those who move their heads or hearts through it are killed. Gurleigh is unaffected, because Welligham gave him a special ring which renders him immune to panergon. But everyone else is affected. The burglars who break into Welligham’s laboratory and killed him during the robbery are themselves killed, and a French invasion fleet is wiped out. Gurleigh eventually takes control of the machine and enforces world peace on Britain’s behalf, dictating terms of disarmament to all the other nations of the world.

A Fortune from the Sky is an odd combination of the Future War and mad scientist genres. Adams begins the novel with the statement that Great Britain is unprepared for war, but as the novel progresses he makes several snide references about writers who say the same thing. Adams clearly does not think much of the Future War genre, but it is equally clear that without Welligham the French and Russians would have successfully invaded the Home Islands. 1900 was the end of what I.F. Clarke, dean of Future War letters, calls the “first main phase” of the genre¹, with the runaway best-selling Future War novels of Erskine Childers’ The Riddle of the Sands (1903) and William Le Queux’s The Invasion of 1910 (1906) being the best representatives of the Future War genre’s second, later phase. This “first main phase” of Future War novels usually featured France rather than Germany as Britain’s main opponent;² it was only in the second phase, starting in 1903, when the effect of the 1897 German Naval Laws on the future German Navy became most apparent, that Germany became the obvious future opponent of Britain.³ Although A Fortune from the Sky was published in 1902, it still fits neatly into the “first main phase” of Future War novels in its choice of the French and the Russians as the enemy. (The Russians were usually, in Future War fiction of the “first main phase,” the chosen allies of the French due to their historical closeness).

Interestingly, most Future War novels of the “first main phase” stuck to realistic technology, with the popular technological innovations being airships and submarines.⁴ It was only late in the phase, in the late 1890s, that writers, publishers, and readers became aware of the possibilities of merging more technologically extreme weapons, ala the panergon in A Fortune from the Sky. The discovery of X-rays in 1895, and then the heat rays of H.G. Wells’ Martians (see: War of the Worlds) in 1897, can be seen as the primums mobile behind the super-weapon Future War novels.

Welligham is an interesting variant of the mad scientist character type. Welligham bald-facedly admits to experimenting on the poor and homeless with his machine, manipulating their wills and even killing them. Welligham states that it was done in the pursuit of science and feels no guilt about his acts. Gurleigh does not like Welligham, but Gurleigh works for Welligham because he needs the money. Welligham is unlikable, and it is clear that Adams does not approve of him. But panergon and the machine channeling it, though causing great mayhem and destruction, result in a utopia at the end of the novel. A Fortune from the Sky’s portrayal of a mad scientist as an amoral and merciless genius obviously partakes of Wells’ Doctor Moreau (see: The Island of Dr. Moreau) in 1896 and of contemporary ideas of the genius as insane because of his high intelligence.⁵ The idea that the Future War will lead to a utopia is Sir Adams’ own, and an innovation in both the Future War and the mad scientist genres.

A Fortune from the Sky is readable, briskly told, takes the idea of a death ray to its logical conclusion–the body count in the novel is high, in the tens or perhaps hundreds of thousands–and possesses a stiff jollity and wit. A Fortune from the Sky is better than the generic post-Verne, post-Wells science fiction novels, and of additional interest because of its treatment of the Future War and mad scientist tropes.

Print: Skeleton Kuppord, A Fortune from the Sky. London: Forgotten Books, 2018.

¹ I.F. Clarke, “Future-War Fiction: The First Main Phase, 1871-1900,” Science Fiction Studies 24.3 (Nov., 1997): 387-412.

² I.F. Clarke, “Future-War Fiction: The First Main Phase,” 406.

³ Patrick Longson, “Imperial Anxiety and British Popular Culture, 1896-1903" (PhD diss., University of Birmingham, 2013), 73.

⁴ Brian Stableford, “Future War,” The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, edited by John Clute, David Langford, Peter Nicholls, and Graham Sleight. John Grant, accessed Feb. 11, 2019, http://www.sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/future_war

⁵ Jess Nevins, “Organ Theft and the Insanity of Geniuses: A History of Mad Scientists in the Industrial Age,” io9.com, accessed Feb. 11, 2019, https://io9.gizmodo.com/5809558/organ-theft-and-the-insanity-of-geniuses-a-history-of-the-mad-scientist-part-two