Rumors of War and Infernal Machines: Technomilitary Agenda-setting in American and British Speculative Fiction

321 Pages·2005·1.33 MB·English

by  Charles E. Gannon

RUMORS OF WAR
AND INFERNAL MACHINES

RUMORS OF WAR
AND INFERNAL MACHINES
Technomilitary Agenda-setting in American and
British Speculative Fiction
ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD PUBLISHERS, INC.
Lanham Boulder New York Toronto Oxford
ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD PUBLISHERS, INC.
Published in the United States of America
by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
A wholly owned subsidiary of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc.
4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706
www.rowmanlittlefield.com
Copyright O 2003 by Charles E. Gannon
First Rowman & Littlefield edition published in 2005
Originally published in 2003 by Liverpool University Press. Reprinted with
permission.
All rights resewed. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a
retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission
of the publisher.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Gannon, Charles E.
Rumors of war and infernal machines : technomilitary agenda-setting in
American and British speculative fiction / Charles E. Gannon.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index.
-
ISBN 0-7425-4034-0 (alk. paper) ISBN 0-7425-4035-9 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Science fiction, American- History and criticism. 2. Literature and
technology - English-speaking countries. 3. Science fiction, English - History
and criticism. 4. War and literature-English-speaking countries. 5. War stories,
American- History and criticism. 6. War stories, English - History and
criticism. 7. Imaginary wars and battles in literature. 8. Military art and science
in literature. 9. Technology in literature. 10. War in literature. I. Title.
PS374S35G36 2005
813'.0876209358 - dc22
2005014081
Printed in the United States of America
@\he paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of
-
American National Standard for Information Sciences Permanence of Paper for
Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO 239.48-1992.
This book is a testament to the support and inspiration of the following
people: my beloved wife and soul-mate Andrea Trisciuzzi; my dear
mother, Cecilia Gannon; my late father John Gannon; and last, but cer-
tainly not least, my sons, Connor and Kyle.Most particularly, this book is
for the two of you and the safety of your future—since the worlds we
imagine will influence the one you inherit.

Contents
Acknowledgements viii
Introduction Assessing Rumors—of War and Infernal Machines 1
1 Armageddon by Gaslight: Victorian Visions of Apocalypse 8
2 Opportunistic Anticipations and Accidental Insights: 32
William Le Queux’s Exploitation of Edwardian Invasion
Anxieties
3 Promoters of the Probable, Prophets of the Possible: 62
Technological Innovation and Edwardian Near-Future
War Fiction
4 H.G. Wells: The Far-Future War Prophet of Edwardian 91
England
5 Hard Numbers, Hard Cases, Hard Decisions: Politics and 112
Future-War Fiction in America
6 An Imperfect Future Tense(d): Anticipations of Atomic 128
Annihilation in Post-War American Science Fiction
7 Nuclear Fiction and Silo Psychosis: Narratives of Life in the 146
Shadow of a Mushroom Cloud
8 Radio Waves, Death Rays, and Transgressive (Sub)Texts: 173
Future-War Fiction in the Wide Black Yonder
9 Making Man-Machines of Mass Destruction: Future-War 208
Authors as Seers in an Age of Cyborg Soldiers
10 Cultural Casualties as Collateral Damage: The Fragment-ing/ 239
-ation Effects of Future-War Fantasies vs. Fictions
Afterword On Conducting a Literary Reconnaissance in Force— 256
and in Earnest
Notes 259
Bibliography 287
Index 292
Acknowledgements
I wish to extend fond thanks to my colleagues Philip Sicker (Fordham
University), Ian Clarke (Emeritus Professor, Strathclyde University), and
David Seed (Liverpool University). Other invaluable contributions were
made by Peter Wright (Edgehill College), Jerry McClellan, and Mark.
I thank the Fulbright Commissions of both the US and the UK for their
generous Fellowship to conduct a year of writing and crucial research in
the United Kingdom. I also thank Fordham University for years of excep-
tional support.
I also acknowledge the assistance and use of the following collections:
the Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives at the Library of King’s
College, London; the British Library; the National Library of Scotland, and
the Blackwood Archives in particular; the Sydney Jones Library of
Liverpool University, and the Foundation Science Fiction Archive in par-
ticular.
Illustration Credits
Comparison photographs of before/after shelling results at Verdun:
Suddeutscher Verlag, Munich
Starship Troopers in fatigues pocket: US Naval Institute Photo Archives
(Chuck Mussi)
Objective Infantry Combat Weapon (OICW), and Land Warrior: public
website, United States Army
Artist’s rendering of Boeing Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV): Boeing
Aerospace
Artist’s rendering of Future Combat System: public website, DARPA
Introduction: Assessing Rumors—of War
and Infernal Machines
This book, which examines how the fundamentally Utopian enterprise of
orderly speculation has often produced destructive technologies, is fur-
nished with a title compounded from two phrases culled (respectively)
from the discursive archives of peace and war. The first phrase—‘rumors
of war’—appears in the gospels of Mark and Matthew, part of Christ’s
warning to the apostles (and, arguably, humankind) that the future path
to final peace will be marked by violent trials that will attend ‘wars and
rumors of wars.’ In contrast, the second phrase—‘infernal machine’—has
much more recent, and much more martial, origins.
While on his way to the Paris Opera on the night of December 24, 1800,
Napoleon Bonaparte narrowly escaped an assassin’s primitive time-bomb.
Napoleon’s angry characterization of the device—‘machine infernale’—
was subsequently inscribed not only on the back of a commemorative
medal, but upon the linguistic consciousness of the Western world. By the
time of the American Civil War, the phrase ‘infernal machine’ had become
a favorite with journalists, who used it to refer to landmines, time-bombs,
or other mechanisms that killed without the presence or immediate
control of an attacker.1However, the semantic components of the phrase
are ultimately more pertinent than its history.
The inclusion of the adjective ‘infernal’ is particularly interesting: not
merely a consequence-descriptive word (such as ‘deadly’), ‘infernal’ also
suggests hellish origins and a corresponding moral taint. This word choice
also reflects Western society’s initial and (avowedly) enduring derogation
of automated killing devices. Certainly, the ‘evils’ of such weapons are
many: they abet the basest subterfuges of terrorism; they are undeterred
by the presence of unintended, innocent victims; and once activated, their
attacks cannot be aborted. However, the moral quandaries posed by this
species of device are what make it a singularly fitting metasymbol for the
other innovative or imaginative weapons that are examined herein and
which have come to increasingly dominate military thought, design, and
operations, particularly since World War I. Like Napoleon’s ‘infernal
machine,’ ‘smart’ bombs and other weapons of the increasingly