This story features an enormous British passenger liner named the SS Titan, which, deemed to be unsinkable, carries an insufficient number of lifeboats.

The book was published 14 years before the actual Titanic, carrying an insufficient number of lifeboats, hit an iceberg on the night of April 14, 1912, and sank in the North Atlantic Ocean, killing most of the people on board.

[citation needed] In 1914, in a volume that also contained a new version of Futility, Robertson included a short story named "Beyond The Spectrum", which described a future war between the United States and the Empire of Japan, a popular subject at the time.

[2] Japan does not declare war but instead ambushes United States ships en route to the Philippines Islands and Hawaii; an invasion fleet about to begin a surprise attack on San Francisco is stopped by the hero using the weapon from a captured Japanese vessel.

Fans of Edgar Rice Burroughs acknowledge Robertson's contribution to the works of Henry De Vere Stacpoole, particularly The Blue Lagoon.