Varlet’s firsr science fiction novel mixes astronomy with the “dismal science” of economics for a tale of international intrigue, French post-World War One woes, impending war, and romance while also managing to be somewhat prophetic.

The story begins with narrator Antoine Marquin, a medical doctor, attending a party the day before he is to leave on an expedition to the Antarctic. There he meets the Kohbulers of Switzerland. He doesn’t much like the pushy Dr. Kohbuler, but he is immediately smitten with his beautiful daughter Frédérique-Elsa, an accomplished mathematician.

A radio broadcast announces a great storm in the North Atlantic with the loss of many ships. Here Varlet raises early his theme of the changes modernity has brought and humanity’s dangerous character. Marquin remarks to Dr. Kohbuler that “The rhythm of life on our planet has accelerated, and humankind is increasingly forming a whole, a single organism palpitating all at once with the same reactions.”

If this storm had happened 13 years ago, it would have taken three or four days to learn about the loss of life. Dr. Kohbuler says the Great War showed humanity was not a homogenous mass, that the races are irreconcilable.

Later, the party members feel a shaking which reminds Marquin of an earthquake he once experienced in Italy. A later radio broadcast says tsunamis hit the coasts of Western Europe from Ireland to Spain and even more damage was done on the eastern coasts of Canada and America. Submarine cables and wireless transmissions have been affected.

France is heavily in debt, inflation is high, and the franc is taking a pounding in its exchange rate with the pound sterling, the international currency of the time. The French public is demoralized.

Marquin boards his ship, the Erebus II, and we find it’s well stocked with various scientists including several geologists, mining engineers, and mining equipment. It seems there are hopes that minerals worth exploiting will be found in the Antarctic.

But a new island has been discovered, dubbed N, in the North Atlantic, and the French government retasks the ship and expedition to check it out.

N, it will quickly be realized by a geologist, is not some new volcanic island. It’s a bolide of gold, soluble gold chloride specifically, and iron. Its wealth could vastly improve France’s fortunes, and N’s nature is kept secret while negotiations are held at the League of Nations as to which country will get the island.
Discipline takes a hit on an island where you can pick up large gold nuggets with your hands, and the ship’s captain, afraid to describe the island’s true nature even in coded transmissions, heads back to France leaving some of the crew there where they facilitate a deception to further the cover story that the island is just a regular volcano.

After returning to France – a munity is quickly put down on the way back, Marquin meets with his friend Rivier, a banker and sponsor of the original Erebus II expedition, and tells him about the island. Rivier is clever and convinces the French government to wage an economic war against several of the world’s currencies, particularly the pound. Holdings in foreign currency are sold off, making the franc more valuable, and France spends down its gold reserves (presumably to buy up francs).

The franc appreciates in value. Normally, France’s actions would be foolish and only effective in the short time with the franc eventually returning to an even lower value, inflation getting worse, and exports falling. Even gold as a reserve of wealth is going to take a hit if all the gold of N enters the economy. But France can take advantage of it now to pay off debts.

But the French government isn’t the only one that knows the true nature of N. Marquin, in an “amorous indiscretion”, reveals the truth to Frédérique. And the Kohbulers, as we learn in an earlier scene (outside of Marquin’s point of view), are German spies. Frédérique breaks codes and her father is involved in an operation to flood France with counterfeit francs.

Soon international tensions ramp up with several nations claiming N, and Japan and Germany prepare for war.

Varlet’s short novel is compelling in its own right and also provides an interesting look at the psychology of Europe between the world wars.

Also included in the volume are three interesting short stories, not romans scientifiques, from early in Varlet’s career that show his deep ambivalence about modernity and the many changes he had already seen in his life.

“The Thunder of Zeus” pits Ancient Greece against modern vulgarity represented, of course, by an American businessman, Colonel William Klondyke. In Sicily, the narrator comes across the ruins of a large Greek temple recently discovered. His discussion with the site’s custodian when the Colonel shows up. After hearing the temple was one of the very largest Greek temples ever built, the Colonel launches into a remarkable rant against Greek architecture, comparing it unfavorably to the wonders of the modern world. When the narrator points out that, even in America, the Greeks are regarded as the progenitors of modern civilization, the Colonel extends his tirade to include Greek philosophy, religion, and science. It’s such a bitter rant that the narrator feels the Colonel is in “mysterious proximity to antiquity”, his very essence rebelling against the old gods.

The custodian relates a legend that the spirit of Jupiter took up residence in the temple after the emergence of Christianity. Later, after some monks started to live in it, Jupiter brought the roof down on them which accounts for the extreme jumble of the ruins. He also posted an eagle to watch over the site, the only eagle in Sicily.

And then the eagle shows up, and the Colonel is determined to kill, cook, and eat it. Things don’t go well for the Colonel.

Greek themes show up again in “The Last Satyr”. While visiting Greece and reading aloud some verses by Theocritus aloud, the narrator encounters a satyr.

A discussion follows with the satyr revealing he’s not his old self. He no longer knows the “language of my youth”. He’s almost lost his soul. People throw rocks at him. Sure, there are still a few nymphs around, and he lays in ambush for the occasional peasant girl, but he’s impotent these days. The narrator is disgusted that the only tunes the satyr can play on his flute are vulgar and very modern ones.

Holding, perhaps ironically, that modern elixirs can cure all sorts of ills now, the narrator procures in town a mixture of rum, caffeine, and cola for the satyr.

It does the trick, and the satyr talks about the good old days: sex with nymphs and women and running with centaurs. But, things go very wrong and modernity has the last say when the satyr, feeling his oats, rapes a girl.

“Messalina” is a semi-erotic tale. The narrator has a very unfulfilling sexual encounter in a railroad hotel with a local prostitute. Trying to sleep afterwards, he overhears the occupants of the next room. And their sex seems to be much more rewarding. Their dialogue brings very pleasing images to his mind. The woman next door is an ‘excellent courtesan” compared to the mediocre one in bed next to him.

Wanting to see this remarkable woman, he seeks her out the next morning. She is not at all what he expected.

I took the tale to be about the sometime incomprehensibility of other people’s erotic lives and that sexual attraction may be partly a process of self-deception or, perhaps, sex changes perception.

While this story evokes, in its title, the ancient world, it’s not clear if Varlet is expressing much of an opinion about modernity. However, the dialogue of the “expert courtesan” is full of classic allusions which puts her above the banal conversation of the narrator’s rental. ( )