This novel centers on a independently wealthy  young man with desire to travel. On his travels he falls into a subterranean world inhabited by creatures and people the likes of which he has never encountered. The people survive with the help of an energy source known as “Vril”, which gives the ability to heal, change, destroy and possibly become telepathic. The Vril-ya are a highly civilized and evolutionarily advanced society, who believe their eventual purpose is to one day rise to the surface of the Earth and wipe out the every inhabitant they see as inferior in the process. As the narrator spends more time with the Vril-ya, his infatuation with the “superiority” of the humanoid race transforms into trepidation, as the darker aspects of the society, including eugenics, and even mind control, are revealed.  The novel raises the question of whether these evolutionarily advanced people belong to a utopia or a dystopia by drawing parallels to Victorian British society, economics, and technology. Their lifestyle, attitudes towards art, and eugenics-influenced method of procreation allows the reader to question the morality and feasibility of this “superior” society.