The Lightning Wheel

Illustration from original publication

The Lightning Wheel (original title La Roue fulgurante) is a 1908 book by Jean de La Hire. It was originally serialized of publication in daily newspaper Le Matin . ^[1]

Plot

Five humans are abducted by a spaceship and transported to the planet Mercury. There they must face a cannibalistic species of aliens. On Earth, there is an attempt to save them using psychic powers.

Influence

After the novel's success, Le Matin gave La Hire an exclusive contract.

Bertrand Méheust, a French sociologist, began a study of the science fiction parallels to ufo mythology when he stumbled upon a copy of the novel in his family's attic. He opened it and began reading how the central characters find themselves being lifted up by a ray into a flying disc that hums and glows with a halo of light. ^[2]

References

1. Golston, Michael (November 19, 2023). "The Science Fiction of Poetics and the Avant-Garde Imagination". University of Alabama Press – via Google Books.
2. Jeffrey J. Kripal, Authors of the Impossible: The Paranormal and the Sacred, University of Chicago Press, 2010, pp. 206–8.