"Vril; the Power of the Coming Race" comes from one of the stranger characters of the 19th century. Bulwer-Lytton's works then would proceed to inform, to varying degrees, many of the occult works and figures of the subsequent five decades, from Blavatsky on through to the now modern era with its UFOs and Antarctic expeditions. As a fictional work, this text is interesting- it is when the work is taken as a veiled reference to reality that we get two entirely different meanings- a symbolic work as Plato's Atlantis writings, on the topic of philosophy, or a reference to actual events as it is (and was) taken by some. Its early science fiction, then-standard fantasy content continues its readability to this very day.