Zarlah the Martian by R. Norman Grisewood, Science Fiction (Hardcover)

""For more than six hundred years we have been able to observe the progress of your planet," the Martian said through the device I had built, "through an instrument by which light-waves are projected and received, and have found it to be identical with ours of almost fifteen hundred years ago. Anxiously we have watched and waited for the discovery of an instrument that would respond to our projected light-waves and reveal to you the inhabitants of your neighboring planet. At last this momentous time has arrived. I congratulate you upon bringing it about.""

"As he spoke, his voice, coming from the diaphragm of my instrument, sounded as distinct as if he were in the room, and his image, depicted life-size, made it hard to believe that he was more than a few feet away. That my informant was, in reality, millions of miles away, my mind absolutely refused to grasp. . . ."

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When we were young, we read that Hugo Gernsback had invented science fiction his own self back in the late 1920s. But R. Norman Grisewood's "Zarlah the Martian" dates from 1909! What gives? Was Grisewood a man ahead of his time -- or was he a fan from the 1930s who somehow invented a time machine? Inquiring minds want to know. You know where to reach us.