The Coming Race.

The novel "The Coming Race" by English writer Edward Bulwer-Lytton (1803-1873) was published in 1872. The main character, a traveler, recounts an encounter with an underground race of superhumans who have gained power over living and dead nature through vril. Vril is a universal source of Earth's energy capable of influencing every manifestation of animal and plant life. The hero realizes that this civilization is capable of exterminating humanity forever. The plot of the novel left a strong impression on contemporaries: many theosophists (for example, R. Steiner and H. Blavatsky) saw a possible utopian world of vril rulers, scientists were inspired by subsequent searches for types of energy, while others noted the satire on the social order of the 19th century.