Alfred Jarry's The Supermale is equal parts surrealism, sci-fi, and philosophy. Published in 1902, it was Jarry's last novel. The irreverent and darkly comic story involves a race between a train and a team of cyclists fueled by a special "perpetual-motion food."

The French writer coined the term "pataphysics" to describe his subject matter, saying, "[Pataphysics deals with] the laws which govern exceptions and will explain the universe supplementary to this one." In pataphysics, every event in the universe is accepted as an extraordinary event.