What is science fiction? Part one: a history

Hello readers! I thought I would kick off the year with a somewhat philosophical post. What is science fiction? You’d think I’d know, given how much of it I create and consume, and yet it is a fascinatingly broad genre. If you go searching for science fiction books on Amazon, you will be offered a range of sub-categories, including “hard science fiction”, “military”, “post-apocalyptic”, “dystopian”, “alien invasion” and “time travel” – all in an effort to help you find something you like in this sea of possibilities. With such a broad remit, I can’t help wondering if the term “science fiction” is now too vague to be helpful. We all use it on a regular basis, but in what context? What does it actually mean?

To tackle this question, I have written a pair of posts. The first (which you are currently reading) will provide a brief history of science fiction up to the modern day. This lays the groundwork for part two (coming next week), which will explore the themes that connect these works, and what sets them apart from other fictional genres. Why do we make the distinction? Is a crime novel not science fiction, if a detective relies on technology and follows the scientific method? Is a science fiction novel not fantasy, if the science is so obscure that it could be considered magic? As a semi-professional scientist and author, I find the whole thing fascinating. So here goes. Brace yourselves for a history lesson.

Origins of the term

Although most of us know science fiction when we see it, there is no strict definition. A quick scroll through Wikipedia reveals that academics are still bickering over the boundaries of the genre – whether it can include historical texts from before the scientific revolution, for example. The Hugo Awards, which are widely considered to be the premier award in science fiction, have no rules over which books can be entered. The winner is chosen by public vote, and so the genre is entirely undefined.

The first recorded use of the term “science fiction” is in 1851. It appears in A Little Earnest Book Upon A Great Old Subject – a book by William Wilson that largely consists of waffling about poetry and the meaning of being a poet. Wilson does, however, provide some interesting (if melodramatic) insights into the crossovers between science and art. He is particularly keen to stress that the awe and wonder unlocked by scientists as they explore the physical world is, in fact, poetry. He remarks that science fiction will likely “fulfil a good purpose, and create an interest, where, unhappily, science alone might fail” – which is a very prescient insight. Today, science fiction is often the gateway to science, engaging children and adults alike. Most people don’t get excited about papers in scientific journals, after all.

However, despite William Wilson’s efforts, the term “science fiction” remained largely unused until the mid-twentieth century. Of course, the term itself is only half the story. People were writing science fiction before anyone had put a name to the genre. Indeed, they might have been writing science fiction before anyone put a name to science.

The earliest science fiction

Several academics have looked back through surviving historical literature to try and pinpoint the first science fiction story, based on our modern definition. Their findings prove, if nothing else, quite how vague that definition is.

One very early example is The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter, from 10th century Japan. This is the story of highly advanced people living on the Moon, who send their princess to Earth to protect her from a celestial war. She is found and raised by a bamboo cutter, and when she is older, her real family come to take her back home in a vehicle that can only be described as a spaceship. This certainly sounds like science fiction to us in the modern day, but at the time, there was no science to suggest that anyone could go to the Moon. This was pure fantasy – even if it has the hallmarks of science fiction by modern standards.

Predictably enough, most early science fiction appears to come from Europe. This is presumably a result of more stories being written down, distributed and preserved, and probably because academic research ends up in a positive feedback loop of re-reading and re-interpreting the same texts. It would be fascinating to know about early science fiction from other parts of the world, but the four examples I have found of “the first science fiction” are all European. So here goes.

Firstly, we have Utopia by Thomas More, from 1516. This is less of a story, and more of a detailed description of a fictional island society. However, it was so popular that the word “utopia” entered the English language and later became a science fiction genre in itself. The book is mostly political, and maybe social science at best. It describes rules for societal stability, including organised migration to handle overpopulation, and a welfare state to support the health of all islanders. Sometimes it handles hypothetical ethical dilemmas in a manner similar to modern science fiction, such as discussing the islanders’ approach to euthanasia, but for the most part, it is rooted in the beliefs of the time; for example, slavery is rampant and encouraged. Unfortunately, the lack of a narrative means that the book never explores these concepts or their implications. It just lists them.

In 1634, we find Somnium, written by Johannes Kepler. As an actual scientist, he had all the tools he needed to write some good science fiction, but sadly, it falls a bit flat. Somnium is an account of a dream, and I’m sure we can all agree that detailed dream descriptions are conversational doldrums, no matter how much we respect the storyteller. Kepler’s dream is about an Icelandic boy who is disowned by his witch mother and sent to Denmark, where he is taken in by the astronomer Tycho Brahe (I’ve written about him before). When the boy returns to his mother, she reveals that she talks to demons who can travel to the Moon. Her favourite demon then provides a detailed rundown of Moon geography – and some of this is almost scientific, such as the description of watching the shadow of lunar eclipses move across the Earth. However, the whole concept is bizarre. Kepler was one of Brahe’s students, so he has essentially written fan fiction about his supervisor, and on top of that, his own mother was once tried for being a witch. Clearly, the guy had an imagination, but unlike his favoured model of the solar system, it would seem he was very self-centred.

Next, in 1638, we have The Man in the Moone by Francis Godwin, an English bishop. This fantastical story follows a Spaniard called Domingo Gonsales (hola) who ends up on an island with magical geese (¿que?). He attaches them to his ship and they fly him to the Moon, where he meets a race of people who happen to be human and Christian and white but maybe a bit weird other than that. However, Bishop Godwin made some oddly prescient predictions. He wrote “you shall be able (without moving or travailing of any creature) to send messages in an instant many miles off, and receive answer againe immediately. You shall bee able to declare your minde presently unto your friend, being in some private and remote place of a populous citie” – and despite his terrible spelling, this all sounds weirdly technological. He never described the precise mechanisms for achieving this, but it almost sounds like scientific speculation.

Finally, in 1666, we have The Blazing World by Duchess Margaret Cavendish. In this tale, a woman travels to a parallel universe through an instability at the north pole. This universe contains strange people who are half-animal, and they make her their queen, whereupon she invades her old home world using firebombs and submarines. This concept is fascinating, especially because the protagonist is a self-insert character, and the duchess herself was rather eccentric. She had a clear interest in science, as she was the first woman to attend a meeting at the Royal Society of London – although the science element of her story is questionable. Again, it is probably just fantasy – and we’ll discuss this distinction further in next week’s post.

Into the 19th century

The most convincing story that most people agree to be science fiction is Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, from 1818 (see my review from last year). She also wrote a short story based around the concept of cryonics, and her last novel is set in 2073, in the wake of a great plague that has almost wiped out humanity. This is often regarded as the first dystopian novel, because at the time, any stories set in the future (and there were few) presented idyllic worlds. Utopias, in the words of Thomas More.

After Mary Shelley came two very big names: H. G. Wells and Jules Verne. They utilised science to different ends; Verne used technology as a means to transport his characters through tales of adventure, and tended to describe machines in detail, while Wells used science as a means to explore human nature and society, and tended to gloss over the specifics (we never really know how the time machine works). However, there were dozens of other authors writing similar works by the end of the 19th century, including Arthur Conan Doyle, Rudyard Kipling and Edgar Allan Poe. In a time when technology was starting to play a major role in the lives of ordinary people, it is perhaps unsurprising that it ended up featuring so heavily in the fiction they consumed. Science fiction was becoming an established genre, even if the name hadn’t caught on.

The 20th century

The 20th century was when science fiction as we know it really took off. In 1916, a man named Hugo Gernsback coined the term “scientifiction” for what he saw as an emerging genre, and in 1926, he started publishing the first science fiction magazine, Amazing Stories. He mostly published other authors’ work, including classics from Poe, Verne and Wells, but he also wrote three science fiction novels of his own, with catchy titles such as Ralph 124C 41+ (1912) and Baron Münchausen’s Scientific Adventures (1928). He is sometimes referred to as the father of science fiction, and the Hugo Awards are named in his honour (despite the fact that he always paid his writers very poorly, and his books are, according to public opinion, not good).

However, Hugo Gernsback was undeniably influential. Over many years, he moulded public perception of science fiction, laying the groundwork for the genre we recognise today. He wielded significant control over what could and couldn’t be published in the widely accessible pulp magazines, and he insisted that good science fiction was at least 25% science. In principle, this meant that the stories were bogged down with technical details. Many are regarded as “gadget fiction”, following a simple plot where a mad scientist invents something that has devastating effects on humanity.

The 1940s and 50s are called the “golden age” of science fiction. These decades saw the work of Arthur C. Clarke and Isaac Asimov become incredibly popular, and this was when science fiction films became widespread and successful. The 1960s saw more science fiction published in traditional books (such as Frank Herbert’s Dune, 1965), rather than pulp magazines. This “new wave” era put more emphasis on style and sophistication, crafting narratives that would stand the test of time. This was the era of Ursula Le Guin and Philip K. Dick, when stories started to explore deeper political or emotional themes within the framework of advanced science and technology.

From the 1970s onwards, I doubt that any of us need a detailed recap. As technology became increasingly powerful and sophisticated, and played an increasingly dominant role in our lives, science fiction grew bigger. One standout innovation is the cyberpunk genre of the 1980s, but since then, the ball has kept rolling, engulfing more ideas and growing into a huge, unstoppable force, so large that we cannot comprehend its form.

In summary…

That’s it for part one. Next week we’ll pull apart the threads that tie this enormous umbrella genre together. We all know science fiction when we see it, but what characteristics lead us towards this label? If it is such a broad genre, is there any point in using it? Are science and technology now so ingrained into our lives that there is no loner any point in separating media based on their inclusion? Just some food for thought. Happy reading, and have a lovely week!