A Honeymoon in Space

A Honeymoon in Space by George Chetwynd Griffith

This science fiction book was written more than a century ago. At the time, air travel was via hot air balloons. Knowledge of space and planets was known via observations via telescopes. That leaves this space adventure in the heavy speculative realm.

A man likes a woman, so he builds a spaceship and goes to find her as she is sailing with her current boyfriend. It works. She joins him on the Astronef and they begin to explore the solar system. The ship uses paddles to travel through space. They run into Martians and other aliens on the various planets. Their view is similar to how people might expect to view people on other continents. They do acknowledge that they need special space-dress to be able to go down to some planets. The gravity and atmosphere do result in different "abilities" on various planets. In some cases, they can breathe, while others they can't.

There are also various life forms on planets. Some are Englishs-speaking humans. The voyagers run into gunfire in some cases. In other cases they see interesting creatures. The novel feels like a "steampunk" novel told from a time where steam was really all their was. There is a great deal of imagination in the travelogue.