History Creator / KurdLasswitz

* StockDinosaurs: ''Homchen'' plays it quite straight for an UnbuiltTrope; there is the Stegosaurus, Brontosaurus, Atlantosaurus, Iguanodon, and some large predator called "Great Lizard" (translated to Russian as Megalosaurus and definitely not a Tyrannosaurus - the species wasn't named until three years after the book was published).

* AdvancedAncientAcropolis: In the short story ''Apoikis'' (1882) the narrator by chance comes to a uncharted island in the South Atlantic which is home to an advanced Greek city-state called Apoikis, which was founded by philosophers who emigrated from Greece after the execution of Socrates. Because they did not go through the Dark Ages and other reverses in the march of civilization, the Apoikians overtook European civilization in fields that interested them, particularly philosophy and the mind (most people who come to their island will be made to forget) and also beyond ancient Greek society (there are no slaves and an Apoikian woman is horrified to hear that in Germany girls are not taught ethics and logic in school). They dispose of futuristic technology, such as submarines and an impenetrable force-field, but are perfectly content to live among themselves and away from the barbarians of the outside world most of the time.

* [[GenieInABottle Genie in a Lamp]]: In the short story "Literature/{{Aladdin}}'s Magic Lamp" (''Aladins Wunderlampe''), people in the present try to make the titular artifact -- recently found in the bed of the Tigris -- work. Unfortunately the genie cannot do anything they try to order him to do because he is always bound by the laws of man and of science as they are known at the time of a request. It was just Aladdin's dumb luck that in his day they didn't know about the laws of conservation of mass and of energy, for instance, which meant the genie still could provide him with heaps of gold etc.

* TheMaidenNameDebate: In the 1871 short story ''Bis zum Nullpunkt des Seins'', which is set in the year 2371, gender equality has resulted in a formalized system: Everybody has two (hyphenated) surnames, one inherited from the mother, the other from the father. When they marry, women drop the paternal name and men the maternal one and replace it with the surname of their spouse.
* UsefulNotes/{{Mars}}: In ''Auf zwei Planeten'' Mars (Nu to the Martians) is the densely populated home of a highly advanced civilization capable of interplanetary travel and building various gadgets described on this page.

* HumanMomNonHumanDad: In ''Auf zwei Planeten'' Friedrich Ell is the son of All, a Martian spaceship captain stranded on Earth, and a German governess working in Australia. Ell was raised by both parents on Earth, but became a full orphan just before turning 21 (All never found a way to return to Mars). In the course of the novel another human/Martian couple is formed, consisting of German scientist Josef Saltner and the fair La, but the book ends before the two can seriously start to think about having children (which would be the complementary inversion).

* FairyTale: Laßwitz describes a number of his stories as "fairy tales" or "modern fairy tales" (the term "science fiction" didn't exist yet), and some of them are satirical pastiches of the genre. In ''Prinzessin Jaja'' ("Princess Yesyes") the titular heroine is told by her fairy godmother [[UnfortunateNames Disthymos Kräkeleia]] is set the quest to find a satisfactory answer "the most useless question of all" before she can marry: Do you, Princess Jaja, exist?

In 1871 Laßwitz publish his first science-fiction story, ''Bis zum Nullpunkt des Seins'' ("To the Zero-Point of Existence"), in the Breslau newspaper ''Schlesische Zeitung''. Like the short stories that followed, it dealt with a multitude of themes, often humorously. However, his tendency to explore philosophical themes in his novels rather than to write pure adventure stories prevented him from becoming as big a commercial success as his contemporary Creator/JulesVerne. Laßwitz' most important work is the massive novel ''Auf zwei Planeten'' ("On Two Planets", two volumes, 1897, depening on the typeface used up to 1000 pages), which tells the story of what happens when Earth makes contact with a much more advanced civilization from another planet, in this case Mars. It was published a year before H. G. Wells' ''Literature/TheWarOfTheWorlds'' and tells of a much different kind of alien invasion because Kurd Laßwitz was a great admirer of the philosophy of Immanuel Kant and tried to write his Martians as socially and ethically more advanced than late Victorian Europeans.

* TechnologyMarchesOn: Even though Marconi had conducted his first experiments two years before the publication of ''Auf zwei Planeten'', radio telecommunication is not used in the novel. The Martians use a system of modulated light-rays for telecommunication, which obviously only works line-of-sight. Consequently communication between Mars and Earth can break down at inconvenient (or, from the narrator's point of view: convenient) moments.

* TechnologyUplift: Briefly alluded to as a NoodleIncident: Friedrich Ell mentions that his father All, stranded on Earth after his spaceship crash-landed in Antarctica, eventually reached Australia, where he became wealthy as an "inventor" by recreating bits of Martian technology. Later of course the contact with the Martians results in a general technology uplift to Earth.

* StockDinosaurs: Played quite straight for an UnbuiltTrope; there is the Stegosaurus, Brontosaurus, Atlantosaurus, Iguanodon, and some large predator called "Great Lizard" (translated to Russian as Megalosaurus and definitely not a Tyrannosaurus - the species wasn't named until three years after the book was published).

* DreamingOfThingsToCome: Homchen dreams of a time when powerful mammals will rule the world. One dream is about them studying his school.

* FairyTale: Laßwitz describes a number of his stories as "fairy tales" or "modern fairy tales", and some of them are satirical pastiches of the genre. In ''Prinzessin Jaja'' ("Princess Yesyes") the titular heroine is told by her fairy godmother [[UnfortunateNames Disthymos Kräkeleia]] is set the quest to find a satisfactory answer "the most useless question of all" before she can marry: Do you, Princess Jaja, exist?

In 1871 Laßwitz publish his first science-fiction story, ''Bis zum Nullpunkt des Seins'' ("To the Zero-Point of Existence"), in the Breslau newspaper ''Schlesische Zeitung''. Like the short stories that followed, it dealt with a multitude of themes, often humorously. However, his tendency to explore philosophical themes in his novels rather than to write pure adventure stories prevented him from becoming as big a commercial success as e. g. his contemporary Creator/JulesVerne. Laßwitz' most important work is the massive novel ''Auf zwei Planeten'' ("On Two Planets", two volumes, 1897, depening on the typeface used up to 1000 pages), which tells the story of what happens when Earth makes contact with a much more advanced civilization from another planet, in this case Mars. It was published a year before H. G. Wells' ''Literature/TheWarOfTheWorlds'' and tells of a much different kind of alien invasion because Kurd Laßwitz was a great admirer of the philosophy of Immanuel Kant and tried to write his Martians as socially and ethically more advanced than late Victorian Europeans.

* BiologicalWeaponsSolveEverything: In ''Auf zwei Planeten'' Oß (leader of the Antibat faction), wants to retaliate against Earth's rebellion against the Martian "protectorate" by introducing the Martian disease Gragra.

* HumanMomNonHumanDad: In ''Auf zwei Planeten'' ("On Two Planets", 1897) by [[Creator/KurdLasswitz Kurd Laßwitz]], half-human, half-Martian Friedrich Ell, is the son of All, a Martian spaceship captain stranded on Earth, and a German governess working in Australia. Ell was raised by both parents on Earth, but became a full orphan just before turning 21 (All never found a way to return to Mars). In the course of the novel another human/Martian couple is formed, consisting of German scientist Josef Saltner and the fair La, but the book ends before the two can seriously start to think about having children (which would be the complementary inversion).