Abstract
Some works written during the early phases of the Scientific Revolution can be seen as prototype science fiction narratives. However, the genre began in a more recognizable form in the nineteenth century, particularly in response to the Industrial Revolution and the resulting experience of radical intra-generational change. Frankenstein (1818), by Mary Shelley, has an arguable claim to be the first true science fiction novel, but a substantial body of work that resembles modern science fiction did not appear until the 1860s. Science fiction aimed at a distinctive and specialist market dates from the 1920s and 1930s. Since that time, science fiction has developed though a number of periods and dominant varieties, leading to the current situation of extraordinary popularity and diversity of styles. It has also come to be a dominant presence in many media, including film and television and the important new medium of computer games.
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Notes
- 1.
The full, original title to Swift’s work is the ponderous Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World. In Four Parts. By Lemuel Gulliver, First a Surgeon, and then a Captain of several Ships.
- 2.
Slaughterhouse-Five is ambiguously science fictional. It achieved great commercial and critical success, establishing Vonnegut for the first time as a major figure in the literary mainstream.
- 3.
For further discussion of The Left Hand of Darkness, The Dispossessed, The Female Man, and Woman on the Edge of Time, see Chapter 4.
- 4.
The other volumes are Count Zero (1986) and Mona Lisa Overdrive (1988).
- 5.
Though, to be fair, this seems to be regarded within the film industry as a “sci-fi comedy.”
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Blackford, R. (2017). Science Fiction: A Short History of a Literary Genre. In: Science Fiction and the Moral Imagination. Science and Fiction. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-61685-8_2
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