Genre

Science Fiction

Also Known As sci-fi · SF

Speculative and Fantastic Fiction

Science fiction explores the imagined consequences of scientific and technological change through settings, inventions or phenomena that extrapolate from real or plausible science. Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1818), whose protagonist is a practicing man of science working with the era's advanced study of galvanic electricity, is widely credited as the genre's first novel, predating Jules Verne's Extraordinary Voyages and H. G. Wells's scientific romances by decades. The genre's own name arrived later: the publisher and editor Hugo Gernsback coined scientifiction in 1923 and settled on science fiction by 1929, after founding Amazing Stories, the first magazine devoted to the genre, in 1926.

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1818) is widely credited as the genre's first novel, but some scholars date science fiction proper only from Jules Verne and H. G. Wells's later, more technologically explicit work, reading Frankenstein instead as Gothic or proto-science-fiction.

Facts

Place of Origin

19th-century England; Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1818) and The Last Man (1826) helped define the form, and Brian Aldiss has argued Frankenstein was the first true work of science fiction. 1

Notable Example

Jules Verne's Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas (1870), noted for its attention to detail and scientific accuracy. 1

Defining Trait

A genre of speculative fiction that imagines advanced and futuristic changes in technology, scientific knowledge or biological systems. 1

Science Fiction

12 entries

Active Era

Nationality

FAQs

What separates science fiction from fantasy and earlier speculative writing?

Plausible science and technology set it apart from earlier speculative writing and from fantasy and horror.

Scientific and technological plausibility. Britannica notes that writers in antiquity sometimes dealt with themes common to modern science fiction, but their stories made no attempt at scientific and technological plausibility, and that this is the feature that distinguishes science fiction from earlier speculative writings and from contemporary speculative genres such as fantasy and horror.

Who is seen as the clearest forerunner of science fiction?

Britannica names Cyrano de Bergerac as the genre's clearest forerunner.

Britannica names the 17th-century writer Cyrano de Bergerac as the clearest forerunner of the genre. It adds that earlier flights of fancy, or fantastic tales, offered a popular format for satirizing government, society and religion while evading libel suits, censorship and persecution.

Connections

Associated With

Mary Shelley

Frankenstein (1818) is credited with helping define, and by some accounts originate, the science fiction novel.

Source Science Fiction (Wikipedia)

Utopian and Dystopian Fiction

Source Encyclopaedia Britannica

Encompasses Form

Africanfuturism

Afrofuturism

Alternate History

Biopunk

Christian Science Fiction

Climate Fiction

Cyberpunk

Dieselpunk

Feminist Science Fiction

Hard Science Fiction

Hopepunk

Mecha

Merveilleux Scientifique

Military Science Fiction

Mundane Science Fiction

New Wave (Science Fiction)

Pastoral Science Fiction

Planetary Romance

Post-Apocalyptic Fiction

Science Fiction Comedy

Scientific Romance

Slipstream Fiction

Social Science Fiction

Features Author

A Clockwork Orange

Source A Clockwork Orange (novel) (Wikipedia)

Blindness

Source Blindness (Wikipedia)

Brave New World

Source Wikipedia: Brave New World

Cat's Cradle

Source Wikipedia: Cat's Cradle

Daniel Keyes

Source Wikipedia: Daniel Keyes

David Pringle

Source Wikipedia: David Pringle

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

Source Wikipedia: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

Dune

Source Dune (novel) (Wikipedia)

Emilio Salgari

Source Wikipedia: Emilio Salgari

Erewhon

Source Wikipedia: Erewhon

Farewell to the Master

Source Farewell to the Master (Wikipedia)

Flowers for Algernon

Source Wikipedia: Flowers for Algernon

Foundation

Source Foundation (Asimov novel) (Wikipedia)

Frank Herbert

Source Wikipedia: Frank Herbert

Frank Schätzing

Source Wikidata: Frank Schatzing

Additional Source Wikipedia: Frank SchätzingInfobox: genre

Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus

Widely credited, including by scholar Brian Aldiss, as the first true science fiction novel.

Source The Norton Anthology of World Literature

Gulliver's Travels

Source Gulliver's Travels (Wikipedia)

H. P. Lovecraft

Source H. P. Lovecraft (Wikipedia)

Harry Bates

Source Wikipedia: Harry Bates (writer)

John W. Campbell

Source Wikipedia: John W. Campbell

Killdozer!

Source Killdozer! (novella) (Wikipedia)

Liu Cixin

Source Wikipedia: Liu Cixin

Mary Shelley

Frankenstein (1818) is widely credited by scholars, including Brian Aldiss, as the first true science fiction novel, for grounding its horror in contemporary scientific debate over galvanism rather than the supernatural alone.

Source The Norton Anthology of World Literature

Maurice Leblanc

Source Wikipedia: Maurice Leblanc

Metropolis (novel)

Source Wikipedia: Metropolis (novel)

Naked Lunch

Source Naked Lunch (Wikipedia)

Neuromancer

Source Wikipedia: Neuromancer

Octavia E. Butler

Source Wikipedia: Octavia E. Butler

Philip K. Dick

Source Wikipedia: Philip K. Dick

Ray Bradbury

Source Wikipedia: Ray Bradbury

Roadside Picnic

Source Wikipedia: Roadside Picnic

Second Variety

Source Second Variety (Wikipedia)

Slaughterhouse-Five

Source Slaughterhouse-Five (Wikipedia)

Solaris

Source Wikipedia: Solaris (novel)

Story of Your Life

Source Story of Your Life (Wikipedia)

Ted Chiang

Source Wikipedia: Ted Chiang

The First Men in the Moon

Source The First Men in the Moon (Wikipedia)

The Invisible Man

Source Wikipedia: The Invisible Man

The Left Hand of Darkness

Source Wikipedia: The Left Hand of Darkness

The Minority Report

Source The Minority Report (Wikipedia)

The Swarm

Source The Swarm (Schätzing novel) (Wikipedia)

The Time Machine

Source Wikipedia: The Time Machine

The War of the Worlds

Source Wikipedia: The War of the Worlds

The Whisperer in Darkness

Source The Whisperer in Darkness (Wikipedia)

Theodore Sturgeon

Source Wikipedia: Theodore Sturgeon

Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas

Source Wikipedia: Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas

Ursula K. Le Guin

Source Wikipedia: Ursula K. Le Guin

Source Wikipedia: We (novel)

We Can Remember It for You Wholesale

Source We Can Remember It for You Wholesale (Wikipedia)

Who Goes There?

Source Who Goes There? (Wikipedia)

Showing 1 to 50 of 52 in Features Author, page 1 of 2.

In the Other Atlases

Originated In

United Kingdom

Also in Geography Atlas: where this subject originated.

Source Encyclopaedia Britannicatier 1

Sources

1. Science Fiction (Wikipedia)

Wikimedia Foundation

Definitions section
Science fiction (often shortened to sci-fi or abbreviated SF) is the genre of speculative fiction that imagines advanced and futuristic changes in technology, scientific knowledge, or biological systems.
Literature, 19th century section
Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1818) and The Last Man (1826) helped to define the form of the science fiction novel. Brian Aldiss has argued that Frankenstein was the first work of science fiction. Jules Verne was noted for his attention to detail and scientific accuracy, especially in the novel Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas (1870).
Associated With: Mary Shelley
Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1818) and The Last Man (1826) helped to define the form of the science fiction novel.