SF authors born 1884-93: 1887

1. Ray Cummings
2. Frigyes Karinthy

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Ray Cummings (TK)

TK

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Frigyes Karinthy (1887-1938)

TK

* Voyage to Faremido: Gulliver's Fifth Voyage (1916 novella, translated from Hungarian in 1966). In 1914, Gulliver signs on as a ship's surgeon on a British ship torpedoed in the Baltic. He escapes in a hydroplane, and is then drawn into a strange-looking machine hovering above him. He awakens on an unidentified planet in another solar system. The planet is ruled by intelligent machines, who regard organic life as a loathsome disease of matter; they classify Gulliver with their planet's bestial tree people. They've been observing Earth, and are pleased to see that WWI is in the process of exterminating all human life. Gulliver decides that machines — which don't wage wars — really are superior, and asks to be improved. The machines give him a cranial shot of mineral matter, to improve his understanding, then transport him back home... with the promise that, when he has evolved sufficiently, they'll fetch him again. Gulliver (now a cyborg?) returns to England, where he finds his family and the world around him loathsome and corrupted.