Genres

Science Fiction

Also Known As sci-fi · SF

Citation Formats

General Reference

Literature Atlas. "Science Fiction." Accessed August 30, 2026. https://literature.interactiveatlas.org/genres/science-fiction.

APA Style

Literature Atlas. (n.d.). Science Fiction. Retrieved August 30, 2026, from https://literature.interactiveatlas.org/genres/science-fiction

BibTeX

@misc{literatureatlas-science-fiction,
  author = {Literature Atlas},
  title = {Science Fiction},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://literature.interactiveatlas.org/genres/science-fiction},
  note = {Accessed August 30, 2026}
}

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

Cross-Tradition 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

Features Author

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

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

Sources

1. Science Fiction (Wikipedia)

Wikimedia FoundationDefinitions section

Quote, 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.

View the Source

1. Science Fiction (Wikipedia)

Wikimedia FoundationLiterature, 19th century section

Quote, 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).

View the Source

1. Science Fiction (Wikipedia)

Wikimedia FoundationAssociated With: Mary Shelley

Quote, Associated With: Mary Shelley