Who was the first sci-fi writer?

the answer might shock you

Hello,

Who was the first sci-fi writer?

Mary Shelley.

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Ꙝ

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No, wait!

It can’t be that simple, right? Yes, “Frankenstein” is—rightfully so!—considered a genre-defining masterpiece, and it did pioneer using science (as opposed to magic or alchemy) as a plot device. But is it truly in the spirit of sci-fi? It reads more like a ghost story, a horror; it cannot escape its gothic-romantic predecessors. Also, I might show my ignorance here, but I am not sure “Frankenstein” had a lot of followers; it did not create a movement, and largely got into the public’s mind after the brilliant movie(s). So let’s put the gentle giant aside for now and think again.

Ok. Then, the first sci-fi writer was Jules Verne.

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Ꙝ

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No, wait (again)!

This is also too simple. Of course, Jules Verne is the first undisputed king of the genre. Of course, in spirit, he probably was the first true sci-fi writer—I mean, his books are full of the spirit of exploration of the unknown, of how technology changes our society, of how science shows us new aspects of humanity. And, of course, he also shaped many of the tropes that science fiction still uses, that make up its core.

But was he the original inventor of all those tropes? Let’s look at them one by one, at least the biggest ones, and see if we can find the true origin of each of them.

Time travel

Time travel is a very old trope that was popularized by another father of sci-fi, H. G. Wells, in his “The Time Machine” (1895) classic. But he certainly was not the first to think about it. After all, Washington Irving wrote “Rip Van Winkle” some 80 years earlier, and it still counts, even though the titular hero has “traveled” in his sleep for only 20 years.

The earliest version of time travel in fiction that I know, however, is much older. A Japanese folk tale called “Urashima Tarō” tells us about a fisherman who spends a few days in the company of an underwater princess, and returns only to find that in his home village, 100 years have passed. The story is dated to approximately the 8th century.

From an Otogizōshi picture scroll, late 16th or early 17th century

First contact

And again, H. G. Wells has probably cemented this trope in our minds with his “War of the Worlds”. There are, of course, earlier examples; for instance, Voltaire’s “Micromégas“ (1752)—a story about a giant alien from a planet that orbits Sirius who first visits Saturn and then Earth. It is quite a good story that, like many of Voltaire's, quickly turns satirical. It is not as funny as “Candide”, but still worth a read.

Illustration of “Micromégas”

But we can go even deeper into the whirpool of time and, again, to the east. In Japanese scroll “The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter” (written between 9th and 10th centuries), a princess from the Moon, who, as a baby, comes to Earth. Her beauty captures the minds of everyone around her, and in the end, she is courted by the Emperor of Japan. It turns out that her lunar parents sent her to Earth as a punishment for an unknown crime. Her parents come to pick her up in a cloud, and she is taken back to the Moon. Talk about helicopter parents.

Illustration of “The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter” c. 1650

Robots/Mechanisms

The word “robot” was famously invented by Karel Čapek, who is one of my favorite writers, and is as underappreciated as anyone in history, but I believe Jules Verne has written about mechanical creatures 10 years before Čapek was born (for example, in “The Steam House”, 1880). But, of course, literature knows examples much earlier than that. “The Golem” deserves a mention here, but the idea of mechanical contraptions helping or harming humans is a mythological one.

For example, in “One Thousand and One Nights”, we find a story called “The Ebony Horse”, in which a mechanical flying horse is being controlled with buttons and can fly towards the Sun. That, I guess, would make its owner a sort of “Knight Rider”, but way cooler.

Illustration of “The Ebony Horse“ by John D. Batten

But even earlier, in the “Ramayana” (5th to 4th century BCE), we can find flying machines that are able to travel into space or under water, and destroy entire cities using advanced weapons. So, Čapek has found a suitable word for a 2500-year-old idea.

New societies and other worlds

I sort of jumbled several different tropes into this one. Magical lands, of course, existed for as long as humans told each other stories. So, to focus ourselves on true proto-sci-fi, we would look at imaginary places that either required technological advances to reach, or exhibited an unusual society that is studied in detail. Even with those constraints, we can see a lot of options, but the most notable are the following two:

First, of course, there is Jonathan Swift with his “Gulliver’s Travels” (1726). This series has gradually more weird stories (remember talking horses?). Of course, all of these travels are types of satire, mocking contemporary British society. But even Swift was not the first here.

Illustration of “Gulliver’s Travels” by J.J. Grandville, 1856

“The Blazing World” (1666) is an incredible novel written by an incredible author, Margaret Cavendish. It describes a voyage to an unknown land that was reached through the North Pole, populated by human-animal hybrids. It is also satirical and even surreal in nature. Interestingly, it was published as a philosophical companion piece to a work of contemporary science, “Observations upon Experimental Philosophy”, by the same author, so the title of one of the proto-sci-fi novels is fully justified here.

Space travel

Now we come to the trope, that, in my opinion, defines the genre. Space travel combines the spirit of exploration, technological advances, and, often, new societies. Space travel is the ultimate mark of sci-fi. It is also different from traveling to magical lands. This is where I would draw the border, the magical-scientific Maginot line. This difference is subtle, but, to me, this subtlety is the true essence of science fiction. Do you know why a flight to the Moon is different from sailing to a magical land?

Because it’s there.

Because the Moon, and space, and planets are there, and our children, or our children’s children, or Elon Musk’s weird clone-grandkids will reach them. This is why flying to another planets is special to me, and this is also why the best sci-fi stories feature this trope so often.

With this in mind, can we find the pioneer? Is it Jules Verne with his “From the Earth to the Moon” (1865)? He uses a clear technological advance to reach it (namely, a big-ass cannon). Is it Erich Raspe, whose Baron Munchausen did basically the same thing, just less engineery and more blow-smoke-y in 1786? Is it Daniel Defoe, whose satire “The Consolidator” (1705) describes a flight to the Moon on a chariot?

Illustration of “From the Earth to the Moon”

No. I believe, here, the gold medal in interplanetary flight goes to Lucian of Samosata, a Helleno-Syrian satirist and comedian who, in the 2nd century AD, wrote a bona fide science fiction novel. And, arguably, one of the first novels, period. Appropriately, it is called “A True Story”.

A True Story

This is a remarcable book, and this whole essay was originally planned as just a short review for it. I went in a different direction in the end, but still, I’d like to give you a quick rundown of the plot. Lucian starts with a preface that, I think, is a summary of his writer’s philosophy: “I turned my style to publish untruths, but with an honester mind than others have done: for this one thing I confidently pronounce for a truth is that I lie”.

With that in mind, the book describes the absolutely true adventures of the author as he travelled west into the Atlantic Ocean until, eventually, a strong whirlwind picked up their ship, threw it high in the air, and they continued to sail the skies. Prior to that, by the way, as an apéritif, they disembarked on an island and had sex with walking trees. This book is also very horny.

So they sailed the air, until they were boarded by a bunch of moon men riding hyppogriphs. Turns out, that the Emperor of the Moon was once from Earth, just like them. And now he’s in the middle of an interplanetary war with the king of the Sun, and asks the heroes to join his army. The army is kinda insane: there are birds with lettuce leaves instead of feathers, flea-riders and sailed windwalkers. I would love for James Cameron to film this instead of Avatar.

The Sun army is also quite diverse: there are ant and gnat riders, turnip-slingers and warriors with mushroom shields and asparagus spears. The space war logistics is realized beautifully here: a bunch of space spiders weave a web from Moon to Venus, and all the footmen use it to travel.

Illustration of “A True Tale” by Aubrey Beardsley, 1894

The Sun army wins and the sides sign a peace agreement. Lucian then continues to describe the lunar society and its inhabitants in detail, including what they eat (flying frogs, of course), what they’re wearing (clothes from glass and copper) and what their nose droppings taste like (“more sweet than honey”). They also have a giant flat glass that is basically a TV: it allows you to view other cities and countries and hear everything that is spoken.

The second half of the books describes another travel in the belly of a huge whale, where they also encounter a society of fish people, and then a travel to an island inhabited by Greek mythological heroes. This part, admittedly, is less sci-fi than sweet-nosed moon men. “A True Story” is free on Amazon and is definitely worth a read.

What did we learn?

So is Lucian of Samosata the first sci-fi writer? No, probably not, if we’re being honest. Despite some great ideas, there is too much “fi” and not enough “sci”. Did we do this little research in vain? Also not, because it helped us to understand the roots of the sci-fi genre a little better. So, what did we learn?

At the very least, we learned that not all questions have simple, straightforward answers, even though some do. But we also learned a few things about the genre of sci-fi.

First, the roots of sci-fi are very old. In fact, one of the first written novels was a proto-sci-fi novel. This genre is not “artificial”, it is not just a literary response to the Industrial Revolution; it seems to be natural to humankind in general.

Second, I think modern sci-fi writers (and readers) underappreciate that sci-fi in its origin is most often satire. And I think my personal favorites in the genre—Robert Sheckley, Harry Harrison, Kurt Vonnegut—knew that, or at least felt that instinctively. Sci-fi was born from a funfair mirror, and its tools were originally developed for mockery and not pride. And all the tropes mentioned above are just ways to kink and curve that mirror, to show us ourselves in an unexpected angle.

Third, I'd like to stress the difference between sci-fi and fantasy. I like both, but there is a difference. Fantasy looks inward, into our own minds and imagination. Elves and orcs live deep inside. Sci-fi looks outward, into the cosmos, into the yet unknown.

Fantasy is fantasy. Sci-fi is hope.

I think this is a good place to finish. This newsletter took me to unexpected places, but all the good ones do, and it is also in the spirit of the genre.

No, wait (again, again)! Who WAS the first sci-fi writer?

Ah, right, we hung a Checkov’s blaster on this letter’s title, so before we finish, we ought to shoot it.

The first sci-fi writer was Mary Shelley.

First of all, “Frankenstein” does live on the edge of sci-fi, and Shelley herself makes a great argument for that in the preface to the book:

The event on which this fiction is founded has been supposed, by Dr. Darwin, and some of the physiological writers of Germany, as not of impossible occurrence. I shall not be supposed as according the remotest degree of serious faith to such an imagination; yet, in assuming it as the basis of a work of fancy, I have not considered myself as merely weaving a series of supernatural terrors.

And second, even if “Frankenstein” is not enough to be considered “full-on sci-fi”, her other novel, “The Last Man” (1826) most certainly is. It tells us about Europe between 2073 and 2100, in the middle of a new version of a bubonic plague, after the near extinction of the human race. Yes, post-apocalypsis and dystopia are not mentioned in my list of most important sci-fi tropes above, but they certainly are classic sci-fi tropes.

This is not a gothic novel, and it’s not a ghost novel. It is a sad prediction of the future, that is also a commemoration of Mary Shelley’s husband, Percy, who passed several years earlier. And it reminds us that sci-fi is hope, but it is also dread and sorrow.

Because it’s there.

Engraving by George Stodart after a monument of Mary and Percy Shelley by Henry Weekes (1853)

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This essay was initially written for the Soaring Twenties Social Club (STSC) Symposium with the theme “Flight”, even if at some point it flew completely off the rails (get it, ‘flew’?), and it will be at the mercy of

Thomas J Bevan

to include it at all.

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Best,

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