Year of the Golden Pig Reading 26: "Beyond 30"

The title of this book sounds like one of the you're getting older books, but it isn't.

When I was a kid I used to read a lot of science fiction and fantasy, and during that time I read a lot of books by Edgar Rice Burroughs, the creator of Tarzan (but surprisingly I haven't read a lot of Tarzan novels). "Beyond 30" was a book that ERB wrote in 1916, just before America entered World War One. It's premise is a look at what would happen if the great war continued and America cut off all trade and contact with the old world. In this novel we are shown what the world would be like two hundred years after this contact has been ended.

The novel is a little far-fetched, but presents some interesting ideas. Europe has become mostly barbaric. An empire has emerged out of Ethiopia and is conquering much of Europe. The Chinese has conquered most of Asia and are making inroads into Europe. And America has created a Pan-American Union from Canada to Tierra Del Fuego.

It would be interesting to re-imagine this novel and set it two hundred years from today. Maybe America has become isolated because of al-Qaeda, or something along those lines.


Still it was nice to read a small work of speculative fiction. Not the greatest of books, but food for thought (or at least fast food for thought).