Heads of Cerberus

One of the first dystopian science fantasies, this novel features a grey dust from an ancient glass vial which is capped with a silver figure of Cerberus, the 3-headed mythological dog that guarded the gate to 'Pluto's realm', that is, to Hades. The fine dust transports anyone who inhales it to a totalitarian Philadelphia of 2118 AD. It was written by Gertrude Barrows Bennett (1883-1948) under the pseudonym Francis Stevens. Bennett, the first major female writer of fantasy and science fiction, has been called 'the woman who invented dark fantasy.'