Published in 1897, the novel pokes fun at several of the main subgenres of scientific romance that had become popular in the final years of the nineteenth century.
[1][2] In one aspect of his multifarious career, Jane spent much of the 1890s illustrating popular novels of speculative fiction, including Edgar Fawcett's Hartmann the Anarchist (1893) and books by George Griffith.
Jane does not spend much effort on explaining how a matter transmitter might actually work; the technology is merely a given, like the titular device in H. G. Wells' The Time Machine of 1895.)
The latter are the dominant indigenous species of the planet; Jane both describes and draws Thotheen as a cross between a small elephant and a large horse-fly.
At the time of Plummer's arrival on Venus, the long co-existence between the two species is breaking down; Zumeena predicts that conflict will soon erupt between them, which the Thotheen will win due to their superior intelligence.
Plummer and Phyllis escape to Earth with Zumeena (the clergyman is by now dead) via matter transmitter; they land on the pinnacle of the Great Pyramid of Giza.