Master of light

Following Voltaire's principle that 'all genres are good except the boring ones', Renard did not divide literature into 'high' and 'low': his works break the usual logic of plot development and combine entertainment with intellectuality. It is no coincidence that Renard was popular not only among readers but also among literary critics, and in the 21st century he was called a 'genius predecessor of modern science fiction' ('Dictionary of Detective Literature' edited by Claude Mesplède, 2003). His work had a noticeable influence on the subsequent development of genre literature and in many ways anticipated the plots of famous science fiction works of the Golden Age. This edition includes the novels 'Doctor Lerne, Sub-god' (1908), 'The Blue Peril' (1912), 'The Master of Light' (1933), as well as the novellas 'The Opera Singer', 'The Glory of Comacchio', 'Monsieur de Trépier, Nobleman-Physicist', and 'Noise in the Mountains'.