Aug 29, 2025
I Was In A Forest Of Colossal Fungi
Illustration by John Augustus Knapp from John Uri Lloyd’s 1895 proto-science-fiction novel Etidorhpa, about the underground adventures of a man named Johannes Llewellyn Llongollyn Drury and a mysterious alien-like visitor. The book is like Dante meets Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland meets contemporary internet conspiracy theories about “the reptilian elite”. As Drury and the creature descend into the earth’s interior, their ever-evolving philosophical debate finds new scenery: forests of colossal fungi; a field of Brobdingnag hands affixed to the bodies of Lilliputians; and the experience of “eternity without time”.
