author
George Gordon Hastings
A little-known American writer from the early 1900s, remembered for a single imaginative novel that jumps ahead to a transformed America. His work mixes futuristic speculation, politics, and adventure in a way that still feels curious and unusual.
1 Audiobook
The first American King
by George Gordon Hastings
About the author
George Gordon Hastings was an American author associated with early speculative fiction. The clearest surviving record of his work points to one known novel, The First American King, published in 1904.
That book imagines characters waking in the America of 1975 after suspended animation, using the premise to explore monarchy, political upheaval, invention, and social change. Later reference works describe it as an unusual future-war and political fantasy novel, notable for its mix of adventure and surprisingly sympathetic view of a new welfare-minded order.
Very little biographical information about Hastings appears to survive in reliable, easy-to-confirm sources, and even standard genre references note the uncertainty around his identity. Because of that, he remains one of those shadowy figures whose reputation rests almost entirely on one distinctive book.