The first American science fiction dime novel and archetype of the Frank Reade series by Edward Sylvester Ellis, a prolific 19th century author best known as an historian and biographer and a source of early heroic frontier tales. “The Huge Hunter” tells a story of a gifted inventor, Johnny Brainerd, who created a steam man. Just like his father, whom he lost very early, Johnny invented numerous things: wonderful toys, miniature steamboats and locomotives, cordless telegraph. One day he tires of these tiny handicraft and decides to make a Steam Man. For several weeks he was beside oneself with the idea, and after some attempts the Man was ready. It was not an android, but more a steam locomotive in human form. By the words of eye-witnesses the Steam Man was able to move at a speed of 30 miles per hour.