Book Description:
Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s The Coming Race (1871) is a visionary early science fiction novel that imagines the discovery of a highly advanced subterranean civilization known as the Vril-ya. Narrated by an unnamed explorer who stumbles upon this hidden world beneath the Earth’s surface, the story introduces a society far more evolved than our own — peaceful, telepathic, and powered by a mysterious energy force called Vril.
The Vril-ya live in harmony, governed by logic, equality, and a matriarchal social order — a sharp contrast to the war, greed, and inequality of 19th-century surface life. But beneath their civilized exterior lies the capacity for terrifying destruction, raising questions about power, utopia, and the fate of humanity should such a race decide to rise.
Part philosophical parable, part proto-dystopia, The Coming Race is a striking blend of occult speculation, social critique, and imaginative science fiction — one that inspired spiritual movements, esoteric mythologies, and early sci-fi tropes for decades to come.
