602. +PHARAOH'S BROKER. BEING THE VERY REMARKABLE EXPERIENCES IN ANOTHER WORLD OF ISIDOR WERNER WRITTEN BY HIMSELF. C. Arthur Pearson; London, 1899. Gregg Press; Boston, 1976. Intro, by Richard Lupoff. Interplanetary novel. 

*  Narrated by Werner, a very successful young speculator on the Chicago grain market. Werner, who had studied at Heidelberg under Professor Anderwelt, receives a surprise visit, in which Anderwelt asks for backing for an antigravity device that he has invented. Werner agrees to help, asking for only 90% of the profits, and Anderwelt builds a small spaceship. After some persuasion Werner agrees to accompany him on a trip to Mars. Their voyage, following the penumbra of earth, is described in detail for about half the book, with weightlessness, radiation, air supply, and space sickness all considered. This material, although sometimes a little grotesque, is often both solid and original. The trip lasts six months. 

*  Mars is much like earth, and the Martians are human, but flabbier, paler, and physically weaker because of the planet's lesser gravity. 

*  The travellers have difficulty in convincing the Martians that they come in peace and have to fight off soldiers armed with bows and arrows, lances, and even giant catapult darts. Rapport is finally established when the terrestrials fly into the heart of the city and ingratiate themselves with the women and children by giving them trinkets. Until now for obvious reasons there has been no possibility of communication, but a young man, who happens to be chief administrator, comes forward and addresses the earthmen in Hebrew. Werner is even more astonished when he hears the man's name— Zaphnath— which was the Egyptian name born by Joseph, son of Abraham and Sarah, in Genesis. 

*  This incident provides the key to the situation on Mars and to the novel. The various planetary bodies follow almost exactly the same evolution, and Mars is now in the stage of the early Egyptians, probably of the Hyksos Dynasty. The land is Kern; it is ruled by a pharaoh; the Nile flows nearby; and the culture is ancient Egyptian in essential matters. Joseph is the pharaoh's chamberlain and is second in command over the land. 

*  In one important respect, however, the Kemites differ from the ancient Egyptians. They have a monetary system with iron coins, since gold is impossibly rare. 

*  Werner and Anderwelt make peace with the Kemites and are permitted to settle in the land. The earthmen are not slow to realize that they have arrived at the time of pharaoh's dreams, and Werner, whom pharaoh appoints grain czar, sets out to corner the grain market, just as he had done in Chicago. The gold coins they had on their persons have enormous purchasing power, and by a succession of shrewd deals Werner acquires storehouses and most of the national grain reserve. Actually, greed isn't the explorers' sole motivation; they would like to see Kemite culture survive, since their spaceship seems to have been sent off into space by a prying Martian, and they have nowhere else to go. 

*  The fat years are followed by the lean, and the earthmen control the destiny of the land. By now Werner has grown somewhat, and sees that he is a steward entrusted to feed the hungry. 

*  As the famine deepens, the social fabric shows strain, and the pharaoh, fearing to lose power, tries to prevent Werner from distributing free grain. A short-lived revolution proclaims Werner and Anderwelt pharaohs, but Werner is captured and sentenced to be gassed. Anderwelt turns up in the nick of time and saves him. Actually, the spaceship had not been lost; the pharaoh had concealed it and falsified the report of its loss. 

*  The earthmen leave Mars, poorer than when they arrived three years earlier, but not discontented. Back on earth Werner continues his speculations on the market, while Anderwelt writes technical monographs. And now they are off again, this time to Venus, whose inhabitants, according to Anderwelt, should be about thirty thousand years ahead of the earth. 

*  Miscellaneous point: The Kemites have giant moa-like birds that they use for military and draught purposes. 

*  Among the more intelligent early interplanetary novels, unusual in its recognition of problems of parallel evolution as well as of the mechanics of space travel. There are, however, loose ends and inconsistencies, as in the treatment of "Joseph," but these are not important. Although Werner's attitude is frankly mercantile until the outbreak of famine, the novel is not anti-Semitic. Werner seems to be moved not so much by greed as by delight in the game for its own sake.