SOURCE: “Ideas,” in Cyrano de Bergerac: L'Autre Monde, Grant & Cutler, 1984, pp. 22-47.

In the following excerpt, Mason outlines the materialist philosophy Cyrano promotes in his stories of space travel.

To most people, Cyrano's work is best known for its science-fiction qualities. Here is an imagination to foresee possibilities such as interplanetary space travel, or modern discs and tapes. The moon is also the land of mobile houses—a veritable caravan park!—and houses that can spend the winter underground. The ‘boule de feu’ which Socrates' demon brings as illumination, sun's rays purged of their heat, anticipates a sense of electric light and energy. But all such wonderful inventions are not merely paraded for their own virtuosity. Above all they are useful to mankind in giving him a control over his environment and thereby improving the quality of his existence. The auditory book, for instance, opens up possibilities of...