The Refined Reader (20) The Origins of Science Fiction

The Refined Reader aims to take a look at the journey to where we are as readers today.  It's part history, part commentary - providing a brief, conversational summary of various aspects of our bookish past and comparing it to how it has affected us in modern times.  I love history, but I am no historian, and while I plan to do my research, if there are any errors, please let me know!  This is as much a learning venture for me as I hope it is for my blog visitors!

After reading about science fiction as a genre, it seems much harder to define than I initially thought.  It is not as rigidly defined as other genres, so there can be a lot of overlap, especially in it's origins, with fantasy.  Fantasy is probably one of the earliest genres of storytelling we have, so that makes sense that science fiction is a kind of offshoot from that genre, where things that can only be speculated on is now more structured by natural laws and science.

Perhaps the first work of  true science fiction (at least it was regarded so by Issac Asimov and Carl Sagan) is Somnium (The Dream) by Johannes Kepler, noted astronomer and scientist of the 1600s.  In the story, the narrator (Kepler) talks about a dream he has had after reading a book about a magician.  In the dream a boy and his mother are transported by a demon to the moon and the story details how the Earth looks from the moon.  It at first started as a dissertation on the planetary motion of the Earth, and the framework of a dream and the fictional circumstances was added later.

Other earlier examples lie in some of the tales in the Arabian Nights and a 2nd century story titled True History by a Grecian writer known as Lucian of Samosata, which features the first story about interplanetary travel and aliens but was intended as a satire of stories that see myths as truth.

However it was in the early 19th century that science fiction as a genre really took form.  Beginning with Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, which is sometimes argued as the first true science fiction novel, and later with the works of H. G. Wells and Jules Verne, which helped to popularize the genre.  The inventions of new technologies also helped to reinvent the format and take it even further into the realm of rational and realistic speculation about the future.

Of course today, the genre is wildly successful in many formats and in many sub-genres.  And I have to mention that there is a wonderful blogger event going on in November - Sci Fi Month, which you can read more about by checking out this post!  I participated last year (but still have to decide if I can commit to it this year!) and had so much fun with it.

What are your favorite science fiction stories?  They can be novels or in any other format!

Sources:
Wikipedia / Wikipedia