Across the Zodiac

Lore & Background

The novel details the discovery and use of apergy, a form of anti-gravitational energy, and a flight to Mars in 1830. The unnamed narrator names his spacecraft the Astronaut. On Mars, the planet is inhabited by diminutive beings who are convinced that life does not exist elsewhere and refuse to believe the narrator is from Earth, thinking him an unusually tall Martian from a remote region.

Reader's Guide

Across the Zodiac is significant as a pioneering work in science fiction, establishing the sword and planet subgenre and being the first novel to set its story primarily on Mars. It introduced the term 'astronaut' (as a spacecraft name) and featured what was probably the first alien language in fiction. Its space ship design included a small garden, an early prediction of hydroponics. The novel's influence is seen in a later 1896 book of the same title by Edwin Pallander, which copied elements of Greg's plot, replacing apergy with a gyroscope for gravity negation.

Did You Know?

• The novel contains the first documented use of the term 'astronaut,' here the name of a spacecraft.
• It is the first science fiction novel set primarily on Mars.
• The book features what was probably the first alien language in any work of fiction.

Pioneering Mars Fiction and a New Word

Percy Greg's 1880 novel Across the Zodiac: The Story of a Wrecked Record occupies a singular place in the history of speculative fiction. It is recognized as the first science fiction novel whose narrative is set primarily on Mars, a feat that would not be matched for decades in the genre's early development. Greg is also credited as an originator of the sword and planet subgenre, a category that would later become one of science fiction's most enduring and commercially successful modes. Perhaps most remarkably, the book contains the first documented use of the word "astronaut" in the English language. In Greg's telling, however, the term does not refer to a human spacefarer but rather serves as the name the narrator gives to his spacecraft. This early coining of a word that would eventually become central to the vocabulary of space exploration underscores how Greg's work, though modest in scope, planted linguistic and conceptual seeds that would grow far beyond its Victorian origins.

Apergy, Diminutive Martians, and an Unwelcome Visitor

The narrative centers on the development of apergy, a form of anti-gravitational energy that makes interplanetary travel possible. Using this technology, the unnamed narrator undertakes a flight to Mars in the year 1830, a date that places the story firmly in the recent past relative to its 1880 publication. Upon arrival, he discovers that the planet is home to diminutive beings whose cosmology is strikingly parochial. These Martians are absolutely convinced that life exists nowhere in the universe beyond their own world. When the narrator attempts to explain that he has traveled from Earth, they flatly refuse to accept his claim. Instead, they rationalize his presence by concluding that he must be an unusually tall Martian hailing from some remote and unexplored region of their planet. The narrator, meanwhile, has named his vessel the Astronaut, lending the story a quiet irony: the very word that would later define humanity's spacefaring ambition is here merely a ship's name, spoken by a man who cannot even convince his hosts that he is an alien.

Alien Tongues and Shipboard Gardens

Beyond its plot, Across the Zodiac introduced several conceptual innovations that anticipated later developments in science fiction. The novel contains what scholars have identified as probably the first instance of an alien language appearing in any work of fiction, a detail that gave Greg's Martians a depth of cultural specificity rarely seen in the genre at that time. The spacecraft itself also featured a design element of notable foresight: a small garden maintained aboard the vessel. This inclusion is widely regarded as an early prediction of hydroponics, the practice of growing plants in controlled, soil-free environments. In 1880, the idea of cultivating vegetation inside a machine hurtling through space was a remarkable imaginative leap, one that would not become a standard feature of science fiction worldbuilding for many years. Together, these details—the constructed alien tongue and the living garden—reveal an author thinking not merely about the spectacle of interplanetary travel but about the practical and cultural textures of life in and beyond a spacecraft.

Echoes in Later Fiction and Scholarly Attention

Greg's novel left a measurable imprint on subsequent writers, most visibly in Edwin Pallander's 1896 book Across the Zodiac: A Story of Adventure. Pallander, a pseudonym for the British biologist, botanist, and author Lancelot Francis Sanderson Bayly (1869–1952), adopted the same title and borrowed several plot elements from Greg's original. Where Greg's apergy negated gravity, Pallander's version achieved the same effect through a gyroscope, a substitution that shows how the core premise of anti-gravitational spaceflight had already become a recognizable template. Beyond direct imitation, the novel has attracted sustained scholarly attention. James Osler Bailey discussed it in his 1972 study of scientific fiction from 1871 to 1894, Roger Lancelyn Green devoted a section to it in his 1975 history of space-flight in fiction, and Karl Siegfried Guthke examined it within the broader context of turn-of-the-century novels imagining humanity's future. These references confirm that Across the Zodiac, for all its modesty, has remained a touchstone for understanding the genre's formative years.