PRINCESS STEEL (2)
By:
July 26, 2025
W.E.B. DuBois wrote “The Princess Steel,” a speculative romance, between 1908 and 1910. As with his other fiction, here DuBois was surfacing and dimensionalizing philosophical and sociological views — specifically, in this case, about the pitfalls of industrial capitalism and the possibilities of revolution. The unpublished story was originally titled “The Megascope,” referring to a device allowing one to see into different universes through time and space; John Jennings named his comics imprint Megascope in honor of Du Bois’ proto-sf invention. HiLoBooks is pleased to serialize the story for HILOBROW’s readers.
ALL INSTALLMENTS: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5.
“This,” he said, “is the globe on which I plot my curves of life. You know in the Middle Age they used to use spheres like this — of course smaller and far less perfect — but that was mere playing with science just as their alchemy was but the play and folly of chemistry. Now my first series of experiments covering the last twenty years has been the plotting of the curves which will give me the Great Curve but —,” and here he came nearer and almost whispered, “but when I would cast the great lines of this Curve I was continually hampered by curious counter-curves and shadows and crossings — which all my calculations could not eliminate. Then suddenly a hypothesis occurred to me. Human life is not alone on earth — there is an Over-life — nay — nay I mean nothing metaphysical or theological — I mean a social Over-life — a life of Over-men, Super-men, not merely Captains of Industry but field marshalls of the Zeitgeist, who today are guiding the world events and dominating the lives of men. It is a Life so near ourselves that we think it is ourselves, and yet so vast that we vaguely identify it with the universe. I am now seeking these shadowing curves of the Over-life. But I go further: I will not merely know this Over-life. I will see it with my Soul. And I have seen it,” he cried triumphantly with burning eyes. Then, feverishly: “I want today to show you one of the Over-men — his deeds, his world, his life, or rather Life of lives — I can do it,” he said and drew his chair nervously toward us and looked at us intently with his dark weak eyes. “I can do more than that,” he said. “You know we can see the great that is far by means of the telescope and the small that is near by the means of the microscope. We can see the Far Great and the Near Small but not the Great Near.”
“Nor,” I added, finding my voice for the first in a vain effort to break the spell, “the Far Small.”
Не beamed — “Yes — yes, that’s it,” he said, “and that will come later — Now the Great Near! And that problem I have solved by the microscope megascope,” and with one more swinging of the lever there swept down before the window a great tube, like a great golden trumpet with the flare toward us and the mouthpiece pointed toward the glittering sphere; laced round it ran silken cords like coiled electric wire ending in handles, globes, and collar-like appendages. “See,” he said: and lo! on the burning sphere a snakelike shadow traced itself under his rapid fingering of the machinery — “it is the Curve of Steel — the sum of all the facts and quantities and times and lives that go to make Steel, that skeleton of the Modern World. We will look through here and if all is well behold the Over-world of steel and its Over-men.”
I shook my head in vague assent and looked out of the corner of my eye at my wife, for I saw that we were dealing with a crank, not with a scientist, and I was wondering just how far we should let it go. He, however, was working feverishly. He had placed three luxurious chairs before the shining trumpet and arranged the pieces and the silken cords.
“Now,” he said in a whisper almost fierce, “my first experiment will begin. We shall behold the Spirit of the wonderful metal which is the center of our modern life, and the inner life of the Over-life that dominates this vast industry — the great grim forces of men — in fact,” and he lowered his voice, “We shall see the Over-men.”
I smiled. The thin dark curve blazed on the flaming globe. With a sweeping bow he conducted us to the great tube which was now pointed on this light. Carefully he adjusted it. Then he raised the silken cords with what I now saw were head and eye and ear and hand pieces and placed them on my wife. She did not hesitate but eagerly stared into the tube. I did hesitate but at last followed suit. The things I touched seemed tremulous, alive, pulsing.
“Now,” said his hollow voice, “the experiment begins — Look — feel — see!”
A little tremor of half fear came over me. I put my foot out to touch my wife’s toe but she seemed reconciled. We were hidden, as it were, from the outer-world in these tubes and earpieces, looking at the sphere which faced Broadway. At first I could see nothing — all was darkness. Then at last far, far away yet painfully distinct I saw Broadway — “the river and cliffs of Manhattan,” as my wife had called it. I watched it idly, dreamily as it faded darker, and yet strangely more intense, and then suddenly lashed into murmuring darkness — then to black silence. The silence grew intense. Then came a vague quickening as of wandering winds beating and whirring over rock-ribbed moors. I could hear the lonely chirp of a cricket. The wind rose higher, the crickets chirped louder and lonelier; then I heard waters rushing on, nearer and nearer, swelling and roaring. Lights began to appear and I saw great crags beetling above the rushing waters. It seemed a narrow stream that struggled and foamed as it came down its broad straight way. The crags that soared above were crowned with great castles and up through the castles and under and over the crags ran ever threads — little silver threads that went out through the broad empty countryside, out far, far away until they seemed all to meet on a great misty hill to westward.
RADIUM AGE PROTO-SF: “Radium Age” is Josh Glenn’s name for the nascent sf genre’s c. 1900–1935 era, a period which saw the discovery of radioactivity, i.e., the revelation that matter itself is constantly in movement — a fitting metaphor for the first decades of the 20th century, during which old scientific, religious, political, and social certainties were shattered. More info here.
SERIALIZED BY HILOBOOKS: James Parker’s Cocky the Fox | Annalee Newitz’s “The Great Oxygen Race” | Matthew Battles’s “Imago” | & many more original and reissued novels and stories.