"First published in 1871, "The Coming Race"...Its premise is unflinchingly futuristic: the inevitable displacement of today's humanity by a more highly evolved "race." But the story unfolds in perhaps the last unexplored place on earth -- the "hollow" interior of the planet... The inhabitants of the interior, who call themselves the Vril-ya, have developed a civilization that far surpasses 19th-century Europe and America in its enlightened use of power. Drawing on an inexhaustible energy source called "Vril," which is controlled by sheer willpower, they have created what the narrator, a naïve American who literally stumbles into their realm, sees as a utopia -- a society without crime, war, poverty or gender inequality... No Vril-ya community exceeds 30,000 in population, on the grounds that "no state shall be too large for a government resembling that of a single well ordered family..." Female Vril-ya, "bigger and stronger" than the males, are the aggressors in courtship. Once married, however, they are "amiable, complacent, docile mates" -- so much so that they freely abandon the Vril powered wings that allow the young of the race to enjoy the effortless flight of angels."