The Flying Legion

Here is a dazzlingly prophetic masterpiece that seems almost uncomfortably timely today. Written in 1920 by George Allan England, who The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction calls "One of the most popular SF authors of the first half of the 20th century," The Flying Legion is, as the Encyclopedia says, "a heist story of the near future involving advanced weaponry and the theft from Mecca of Islam's holy jewels." It is an act of sacrilege for whose expiation most of those involved will pay with their lives, and the few who survive will pay only with the most harrowing suffering and hardship. No wonder H. P. Lovecraft praised England as "one of the supreme artists of the scientific romance." Sam Moskowitz hails it as "The classic of a giant aircraft and a group of restless adventurers--with a score of devices intended to enthrall the adventure-story lover." The Flying Legion is also an important work of ur-feminism featuring one of the most uncompromising heroines to be found in pre-1960s science fiction.