Across the Zodiac: The Story of a Wrecked Record

In Short

Percy Greg's pioneering 1880 novel presents a detailed chronicle of interplanetary travel and alien civilization. After constructing an ether-sailing vessel propelled by "apergy," an unnamed Victorian traveler journeys forty million miles to Mars. He discovers a society that has achieved absolute technological advancement, universal suffrage, and material equality, yet at the price of empathy, family bonds, and spiritual depth. Adopted by Esmo, a patriarch belonging to a covert mystic order known as the Zinta, the narrator marries Esmo's gentle daughter Eveena and navigates the cold, transactional nature of Martial life. As political tensions and private betrayals mount, he finds himself embroiled in violence and profound personal loss. The work stands as a foundational text of science fiction, introducing anti-gravity propulsion, detailed extraterrestrial linguistics, and a biting critique of utilitarian utopianism.

The Story

The narrative begins when a traveler loses his luggage while traveling in America in 1874, an inconvenience that diverts him to New York and ultimately leads to the disclosure of an unprecedented journey. Having harnessed "apergy"—a repelling force acting as the inverse of gravity—the narrator designs an ether-sailing vessel called the Astronaut. Built like a heavy Dutch East-Indiaman with three-foot-thick walls of concrete and metalloid insulation and fitted with crystal lenses for observation, the ship launches during a planetary opposition. The journey across forty million miles of black, silent space proves intensely monotonous, broken only by periodic adjustments to the helm and constant vigilance through the windows. Upon penetrating the evening mists of Mars, the ship touches down gently upon a mountain peak.

Welcomed into the home of an elder named Esmo, the traveler begins mastering the Martial language with the aid of a phonographic recorder that engraves vocal vibrations directly onto gold leaf. Through Esmo, he learns the troubling history of this alien civilization. Over thirteen thousand years prior, all Martian nations merged into a single global state. Subsequent centuries of political factionalism led to universal suffrage for all citizens over twelve years old. The resulting social order produced a hyper-rationalist, hyper-utilitarian society where personal property dominates, family affection has become extinct, and women are bought and kept as domestic commodities. To maintain physical perfection, the state routinely executes deformed or frail infants in State Nurseries. Esmo, operating as an official arbiter, secretly rescues these doomed children and places them in sympathetic homes.

The traveler's moral principles immediately clash with local norms. When the local Regent shows total indifference to a life-threatening danger facing Esmo’s daughter, Eveena, the traveler steps in to rescue her, earning the Regent's lasting hostility. Deeply moved by Eveena's rare gentleness and capacity for genuine love, the traveler marries her, promising that she will accompany him when he returns to Earth. Esmo subsequently reveals that he is a leader of the Zinta, an ancient, subterranean secret society that preserves spiritual faith, occult symbolism, and moral brotherhood in defiance of the planet's prevailing atheistic materialism.

Following an audience with the planet's absolute ruler, the Camptâ, the traveler is granted a sprawling agricultural estate along with several additional wives, including the proud Eunané and the sharp-witted Enva. He finds himself managing a complex establishment where farming and domestic tasks are executed by automated machinery and highly trained, baboon-like ambau and bird-like carvee. Unlike typical Martian husbands who rule through fear, the traveler treats his wives with patient fairness, winning their allegiance even as internal jealousies and attempts with secret poisons like dravadoné destabilize the household. When Eunané falls victim to a deadly pestilence, the traveler risks his own life and hires a mercenary female physician to nurse her back to health, converting his household's envy into fierce loyalty.

Escalating conflict with the secular authorities leads to a crisis when the Zinta discover that state vivisectors have bound a member of their brotherhood, Davilo, to a dissection table. Overwhelmed by righteous fury, the traveler leads a violent raid, cutting down the executioners with steel blades and freeing Davilo. Though successful, his hot-headed reliance on physical force brings a sharp reprimand from Esmo for violating the order's solemn discipline.

Darkness soon engulfs the narrative during the harsh Martian winter. Disease, political persecution, and tragedy dismantle Esmo's family. Esmo passes away, his body enclosed in a coffer while the Zinta perform their quiet funerary rites. Loss strikes at the traveler's heart as Eveena is torn from him by the surrounding calamity. Heartsick and isolated, the traveler prepares his vessel for departure. He clasps the Zinta Signet onto the arm of Esmo’s successor, receives a tearful embrace from Eveena's sister Zevle, and launches the Astronaut into space. As the ship leaves Mars behind, the Zinta brethren chant a final hymn of peace, leaving the traveler to carry his tragic manuscript back to Earth.

How It Unfolds

An extraordinary voyage After losing his luggage in North America, a Victorian traveler constructs the Astronaut, an insulated vessel powered by the anti-gravitational force known as apergy. He embarks on a monotonous forty-million-mile journey across the void, navigating by crystal lenses toward the red disk of Mars.

Arrival on a silent world Descending through dense evening mists, the traveler lands upon a mountain peak without a shock. He is taken into the home of Esmo, a dignified patriarch who offers him food, shelter, and a glimpse into alien customs.

Learning the Martian tongue Using a mechanical phonograph that imprints vocal vibrations onto sheets of gold leaf, the traveler rapidly masters the twelve vowels and forty sounds of the Martian language. He attaches Roman alphabet equivalents to the script and begins conversing fluently with his host.

Uncovering a cold history Esmo outlines how thousands of years of democracy and universal suffrage stripped Martian society of family affection, replacing emotional ties with absolute self-interest and state-sanctioned infanticide. Shocked by this utilitarian order, the traveler discovers that Esmo secretly rescues doomed infants from State Nurseries.

Rescuing Eveena When a local Regent displays callous disregard for Esmo's daughter Eveena during a moment of peril, the traveler intervenes to save her life. Touched by her rare capacity for devotion in a world without love, he marries her and promises to bring her back to Earth.

Initiation into the Zinta Esmo guides the traveler into subterranean rock galleries to join the Zinta, a veiled secret brotherhood preserving ancient spiritual faith and symbolic wisdom. The traveler witnesses twilight rites that stand in direct opposition to the planet's prevailing secularism.

A royal grant An audience with the Autocrat yields a vast agricultural estate worked by automated machinery and trained animal helpers, along with additional wives for the traveler's household. He establishes a rare regime of kindness and equity that bewilders his new wives, including the proud Eunané.

Domestic turmoil and pestilence Household jealousy and poisoned cups disrupt the estate until a deadly disease strikes Eunané. The traveler braves the infection and hires a mercenary female physician to save her life, transforming his wives' resentment into profound devotion.

A violent rescue Discovering that state vivisectors have bound a fellow Zinta member to a dissection table, the traveler leads an impulsive assault with steel blades to free him. Although the rescue succeeds, Esmo sharply reprimands him for indulging in undisciplined bloodshed.

Farewell to Mars The arrival of winter brings crushing loss, claiming Esmo and tearing Eveena away from the traveler. Passing the Zinta Signet to Esmo's successor and bidding a sorrowful farewell to Eveena's sister Zevle, he ascends into space as the brethren chant a final hymn.

The People

The Narrator (Clasfempta) seeks to explore unknown worlds and demonstrate the power of human intellect and Providence, but he is repeatedly confronted by the cold, loveless reality of Martian society. His rigid Victorian morals and impulsive chivalry clash with the planet's utilitarian laws, forcing him to defend those he loves through both domestic patience and sudden violence. By the end of his journey, grief and tragic loss temper his scientific exultation, sending him home a heartbroken man bound to a secret spiritual brotherhood.

Esmo desires to preserve ancient spiritual truth, moral decency, and human compassion in a world that has thoroughly eradicated them. Constrained by the state's absolute surveillance and secular laws, he operates in secret as a leader of the Zinta and an arbiter who rescues condemned, imperfect infants from State Nurseries. He remains steadfastly calm and authoritative until his death, leaving behind a resilient legacy and passing his sacred office to a chosen successor.

Eveena wants only to love and be loved with total devotion, an urge that makes her an outcast in a culture dominated by selfishness and transactional marriage. Standing in her way is the pervasive cruelty of her native planet and the looming threat of political enmity from powerful officials. Through her marriage to the narrator, she experiences genuine tenderness and willing self-sacrifice, ultimately facing the tragic perils of her world with unwavering loyalty to her husband.

Eunané desires status, admiration, and the principal place in the narrator's new household, driven by her vanity and competitive upbringing. Her ambition is thwarted when she realizes the narrator prefers Eveena's quiet gentleness over her own sharp intellect and beauty. However, after falling dangerously ill and receiving life-saving care from the narrator rather than abandonment, her petty jealousy turns into profound gratitude, humility, and genuine affection for her master.

In Its Own Voice

Reflecting upon his extraordinary forty-million-mile voyage through the dark void of space, the narrator compares his emotional state to that of historical explorers setting foot on uncharted continents.

"All that Columbus can have felt when he first set foot on a new hemisphere I felt in tenfold force as I assured myself that not, as often before, in dreams, but in very truth and fact, I had traversed forty million miles of space, and landed in a new world."

Describing the political history of Mars, Esmo explains how centuries of democratic expansion eventually led to a total collapse of traditional human sentiment.

"I thought I had explained to you by what train of circumstances and of reasoning family affection, such as it is reputed to have been thousands of years ago, has become extinct in this planet; and, family affection extinguished, all weaker sentiments of regard for others were very quickly withered up."

Expressing her absolute loyalty, Eveena explains why she would rather face death alongside her husband on his return journey than remain separated from him.

"To leave me here is to inflict certainly, and at once, the worst that can possibly befall me; to take me gives me the hope of living or dying with you; and even if I were killed, I should be with you, and feel that you were kind to me, to the last."

What It's Really About

Underneath its voyage to Mars, the novel operates as a fierce philosophical critique of nineteenth-century secular radicalism, utilitarianism, and unrestricted democracy. By projecting democratic equality and scientific materialism thousands of years into the future, the narrative argues that a society stripped of religious faith and spiritual mystery inevitably degenerates into cold tyranny and emotional death. Material comfort and technological mastery—such as automated labor and anti-gravity travel—cannot compensate for the loss of family affection, moral duty, and selfless love. Through the contrast between the dominant Martian state and the clandestine Zinta, the book asserts that true human dignity relies upon sacred tradition, individual compassion, and an acknowledgment of a higher spiritual order. It asks whether progress detached from moral reverence is merely a civilized form of barbarism, warning that when efficiency becomes a culture's supreme virtue, humanity destroys its own soul.

Why Read It Today

Modern readers interested in the origins of science fiction will find this a fascinating, proto-modern milestone. It is notable for introducing "apergy"—one of literature's earliest anti-gravity concepts—and for constructing a fully realized alien environment complete with phonographic linguistics, automated agriculture, and sub-aquatic vessels. Reading it feels like discovering a missing bridge between Jules Verne's technical romanticism and H.G. Wells's sociological critiques, wrapped in dense Victorian prose.

However, modern readers must navigate significant stylistic and thematic hurdles. The narrative moves at a deliberate, often tedious pace, spending lengthy passages on technical dimensions, scientific formulas, and social history lectures that can feel dry. Furthermore, the text reflects Victorian patriarchal attitudes that contemporary audiences will find troubling; women are treated as chattel within a legalized polygamous system, and the narrator's chivalry operates within strict gender hierarchies. The dialogue can also shift into archaic or phonetically rendered dialect during early terrestrial scenes.

What lingers long after finishing is the surprising chill of its dystopian vision. Rather than presenting aliens as grotesque monsters, the novel depicts them as hyper-civilized humans who have reasoned away their own humanity. The quiet scenes—Esmo saving condemned infants, the twilight rites of the subterranean Zinta, and Eveena's poignant devotion—provide a haunting counterweight to the cold brilliance of Mars's technological utopia.