Key Takeaways
- Frankenstein (1818) is primarily considered a Gothic Horror novel, with its themes and elements being more aligned with horror than science fiction.
- The genre of science fiction has historical roots that extend back to ancient literature, including works like the Epic of Gilgamesh and writings from the Enlightenment era.
- The term 'Science Fiction' was not widely used until many years after Frankenstein was published, complicating its classification within the genre.
- The Golden Age of Science Fiction is marked by the emergence of dedicated pulp magazines in the 1920s and 1930s, which played a crucial role in defining the genre.
- Speculative fiction is a broad umbrella term that includes multiple genres like fantasy and horror, but a more specific definition for science fiction is necessary to distinguish its unique qualities.
Finding the first Science Fiction story takes detective work! The history of the genre goes back hundreds of years, or thousands, depending on how you define it.
Frankenstein (1818) is Gothic Horror at its finest. It’s origin as a ghost story, emphasis on psychological dread, dark settings, gothic architecture, the monstrous, the nature of good and evil, and its legacy as a foundation of cinematic horror, are together overwhelming evidence. The element of an experiment gone wrong will be a part of science fiction also, but it doesn’t make the whole novel science fiction.
Science fiction developed gradually over centuries and Frankenstein is far more important to the horror genre. Victor Frankenstein leads to Dr. Jekyll. Doctor Who is different.
It’s an insult to Mary Godwin Shelley, a brilliant writer, when we’re latching onto one element and ignoring the importance of all the other elements she wove together with memorable originality. She calls her book – The Modern Prometheus, and we should honor that intention of mythology. Along with the Gothic, Romantic, Ghost story, and many other elements.
The creation of the monster is more fantasy than science. The book is vague about exactly how the body parts are brought to life. Chemistry is implied, with no details. The big lab with electricity is an invention of the movies (in 1931). The author’s mention of galvanic experiments is only in the introduction to the 1831 edition, not in the story.
Shelley’s combining elements of horror, science fiction, mythology, and tragic melodrama actually anticipate the modern superhero-supervillian literary genre. Frankenstein is also an early proto-superhero story, and the creature lives on in comics. Great art is more than one thing.
This cylinder seal impression depicts a scene from the ancient Mesopotamian Epic of Gilgamesh. That’s Gilgamesh on the left, a demigod king of Uruk, and Enkidu on the right, a wild man created by the gods who became Gilgamesh’s close friend. Together, Gilgamesh and Inkidu battled and defeated the monstrous Bull of Heaven, sent by the goddess Ishtar. You can see Enkidu delivering the fatal strike to the Bull of Heaven’s skull. We think this might be the very first superhero teamup comic ever created. It dates to 2700 BC.
There are many early examples of Science Fiction stories, with progenitors going back centuries. From the Epic of Gilgamesh (2700 BC) or Lucian of Samosata’s satire True History, where themes of science fiction were explored in a fantasy context, to Enlightenment Era stories that were based in science, there are many sources and steps in the development of SF.
In famed astronomer Johannes Kepler’s Somnium, he draws on his knowledge of science to give the first accurate description of what the Earth might look like from space. Verne’s Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas (1869) mixes romantic adventure with technology that was either current or extrapolated.
Mary Shelley’s short story Roger Dodsworth: The Reanimated Englishman (1826) is actually early science fiction, exploring the potential consequences of cryonics. An area of real scientific study.
Like all other literary genres, there are many works that contributed to the development of science fiction. There is no first story, art history is like streams forming a river to the future. If you want to choose one person or book and say they were the first or best, fine, that’s your personal opinion. History needs to be more rigorous.
Frankenstein is far closer in detail to Dracula or the work of Silvia Moreno-Garcia than Isaac Asimov and Ray Bradbury. Detective stories also have their roots in gothic fiction, eg Edgar Allan Poe, but it’s important to recognize they have become distinct genres, much in the way that horror and science fiction have done.
I think part of the confusion arises from the massive success of Star Wars, influencing people’s views. That’s a science fantasy film, not science fiction, but people have confused and conflated the forms. When a story uses fantastical Magic, with a surface decoration of science and technology, it’s looking back to the eras before authors would do the research to make their science and technology plausible.
That’s possibly science fiction’s greatest contribution to literature: empowering people to visualize what the future might be like based on current knowledge and trends. You’ve got to free your mind from the horror days to explore and appreciate science fiction as it’s own genre.
There’s another factor I think causes people to inaccurately classify Frankenstein. For the last several decades, utopian science fiction has largely been ignored in favor of dystopian science fiction. Dystopian stories are full of horror elements, so people look to horror as the source of the whole genre. When we see more positive visions of the future, we see the distinct qualities of science fiction.
I should mention the umbrella term “speculative fiction” can be applied to many stories, and includes genres like fantasy, horror, alternate history, and so-called “hard science fiction”.
Speculative fiction can be a useful term, though it can be overly broad. It does have the drawback of including Frankenstein, Journey to the Center of the Earth, Foundation, Dragonriders of Pern, Handmaids Tale, and The Story of Your Life all in the same category. We need a more specific definition.
One of the earlier reprints of Jules Verne’s novel 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea was originally serialized in French in Magasin d’éducation et de récréation from March 1869 to June of 1870, then released in book form, becoming a cornerstone of adventure literature. A deluxe edition, published by Hetzel in November 1871, included 111 illustrations by Alphonse de Neuville and Édouard Riou.
Verne’s book was noted for its scientific detail and imaginative technology for its time, and one of the key foundations of the “steampunk” movement in modern literature.
Confusion over the title stems from a misunderstand: the 20,000 leagues wasn’t the depth at which the Nautilus traveled, it was the distance covered.
The term Science Fiction didn’t exist in 1818 and wasn’t in wide use until 111 years after Frankenstein was published. It’s silly to think the many books and movies made in all that time don’t matter. Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas, Erewhon, and War Of The Worlds are also foundational to SF, and deserve equal credit as early, influential science fiction novels.
It was literary critics of 1970s that began the trend of labeling Frankenstein as SF. That was more about the long history of their neglect of female authors. Authors and the public knew her as a master of horror.
Gothic literature still thrives today, thanks to the innovations of Mary Godwin Shelley and those who followed.
Science fiction is also thriving. The beginning of true science fiction as a genre depends on your definition. The Golden Age of Science Fiction is widely regarded as the years between 1930 and 1960, when there were popular magazines dedicated to SF.
The first dedicated science fiction pulp magazine was Hugo Gernsback’s periodical Amazing Stories, launched in April 1926, marking the start of the “Golden Age” for the genre, though it initially reprinted older works and didn’t begin publishing new stories on its own until the following year. The first dedicated sci-fi pulp, publishing new stories on cheap paper, was Astounding Stories of Super-Science in 1930, following earlier genre-adjacent pulps like Weird Tales (1923).
Science fiction, broadly defined, continues to inspire generations of readers and new authors alike, who continue to build on the legacy left them by those who came before. It is perhaps this that makes the genre powerful and enduring.
Now where did James Whale get the idea for an electric laboratory for his magnificent Frankenstein movies? This is science fiction (Metropolis) influencing horror! Different styles and genres can influence each other for the better.
David Raiklen wrote, directed and scored his first film at age 9. He began studying keyboard and composing at age 5. He attended, then taught at UCLA, USC and CalArts. Among his teachers are John Williams and Mel Powel.
He has worked for Fox, Disney and Sprint. David has received numerous awards for his work, including the 2004 American Music Center Award. Dr. Raiklen has composed music and sound design for theater (Death and the Maiden), dance (Russian Ballet), television (Sing Me a Story), cell phone (Spacey Movie), museums (Museum of Tolerance), concert (Violin Sonata ), and film (Appalachian Trail).
His compositions have been performed at the Hollywood Bowl and the first Disney Hall. David Raiken is also host of a successful radio program, Classical Fan Club.
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