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| Mentor/New American Library 1977, Art: Paul Stinson(?) |
As a young teenage reader interested in science fiction in the 1970s, the promise of books like James Gunn's The Road to Science Fiction always appealed to me. Logically speaking, if I could understand how sf developed from its earliest forms, then I could more fully appreciate it in its current form(s). In other words, I hoped that this series would act as a self-teaching aid so that I could have a broader appreciation of some of the "new wave" stuff that was coming out at that time. However, one does not simply walk into the literary worlds of Sir Thomas More and Francis Bacon after having just shelved Star Wars, Conan and Robert A. Heinlein's juvenile-oriented science fiction novels (Red Planet, Have Spacesuit - Will Travel, etc.). Although the covers of the books in the series inspired me to buy all three volumes (later expanded to six), when I actually attempted to read these things it was...torturous. I think I gave up on Volume 1 pretty early on and then just decided to skip ahead to Volume 2. I think I may have read the introduction to Volume 3. Not only that, but Gunn's introductory notes were heavy on the academic theory and light on fun. It's possible that I might have actually managed to get through more of Gunn's series if not for my discovery of the books of Michael Moorcock and Roger Zelazny, whose ironic writing styles were completely in line with what I was looking for in science fiction and fantasy at that time.
Now, dozens of years later, with more patience and a much more rounded view of world history, I can much better appreciate what Gunn was doing in his series. I posted a guide to Volume Two earlier, and my enjoyment of that book gave me the courage to plunge deeper into the misty past. Anyways...
Introduction (Gilgamesh and Greek Mythology)
A True Story (Lucian of Samosata, 185 AD)
The Voyages and Travels of Sir John Mandeville (Anonymous, 14th century)
Utopia (Sir Thomas More, 1516)
The City of the Sun (Tommaso Campanella, 1602)
The New Atlantis (Francis Bacon, 1627)
Somnium, or Lunar Astronomy (Johannes Kepler, 1610)
A Voyage to the Moon (Cyrano de Bergerac, 1657)
Gulliver's Travels: "A Voyage to Laputa" (Jonathan Swift, 1726)
The Journey to the World Underground (Ludvig Holberg, 1741)
Frankenstein (or, The Modern Prometheus) (Mary Shelley, 1818)
"Rappaccini's Daughter" (Nathaniel Hawthorne, 1844)
"Mellonta Tauta" (Edgar Allan Poe, 1849)
"The Diamond Lens" (Fitz-James O'Brien, 1858)
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (Jules Verne, 1870)
Around the Moon (Jules Verne, 1870)
She (H. Rider Haggard, 1886)
"Looking Backward, 2000-1887" (Edward Bellamy, 1888)
"The Damned Thing" (Ambrose Bierce, 1893)
"With the Night Mail" (Rudyard Kipling, 1905)
"The Star" (H. G. Wells, 1897)
As the story goes, in the 1970s writer James Gunn began teaching a
course on science fiction. His classroom lecture notes were apparently later
used to annotate a series of anthologies titled
The Road To Science Fiction. The first volume in the
series is subtitled "From Gilgamesh to Wells" and covers the development of
science fiction from the very first written epic (the Mesopotamian epic
Gilgamesh) to the late 19th century works of H.G. Wells. The next few
paragraphs summarize the entire book and highlight the examples included in it, situating them in the context of Gunn's chronology of early science-fiction.
From the beginning, the earliest historical epics already described fantastic beings with great powers who frequently traveled to exotic lands (Gilgamesh, Greek mythology). In Roman times, the writer Lucian of Samosata first proposed a journey to the moon (A True Story), a concept which would remain popular for almost the next two millennia. This lunar obsession would later be picked up writers like Johannes Kepler (Somnium, or Lunar Astronomy) and Cyrano de Bergerac (A Voyage To the Moon).
However, descriptions of strange and exotic Earth-bound locales were also used
in many “tall tales” such as
The Voyages and Travels of Sir John Mandeville. These travelogues were
eventually used to make social statements proposing improvements to current
political and social systems. These far away “utopias” (and some satirical
“anti-utopias”) were described by writers like Sir Thomas More
(Utopia), Tommaso Campanella (The City of the Sun), Francis
Bacon (The New Atlantis) and Jonathan Swift (Gulliver’s Travels).
In the 18th century, technology had advanced to the point that
exotic scientific theories could become the entire focus of a story (even
without an underlying socio-political message). This kind of early science
fiction was pioneered by writers such as Ludvig Holberg (The Journey of Niels Klim to the World Underground), Mary Shelley (Frankenstein) and Nathaniel Hawthorne (“Rappaccini’s
Daughter”).
In the 19th century, writers began to imagine possible
futures for the first time (that is, futures which were fantastically
different than their own times). These writers included Edgar Allan Poe
(“Mellonta Tauta”) and Edward Bellamy (Looking Backward). This kind of
speculation would eventually find modern maturity in Rudyard Kipling’s “With
the Night Mail (A Story of 2000 AD)”, in which the viewpoint (and vocabulary
used) is entirely that of a citizen of the future. Science fiction in the 19th
century also centered around fantastical “lost worlds” (hidden sanctuaries
which allowed pocket civilizations to develop independently from European
ones). Sometimes these could be found in unexplored jungles (H. Rider
Haggard’s She) and some could even be found in microscopic universes
(Fitz-James O’Brien’s “The Diamond Lens”).
From a commercial
standpoint, Jules Verne helped raise science fiction’s profile with his
immensely popular “extraordinary voyages” (Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, Around the Moon, etc). Science fiction also grew in psychological complexity due to writers
like Ambrose Bierce, who explored (amongst many other things) the “invisible monster” concept (“The Damned
Thing”). Finally, H.G. Wells created highly influential models for 20th century science
fiction with his many novels exploring subjects such
as time travel, genetic mutation, alien invasion, invisibility, space travel
and cosmic Armageddon (“The Star”).
Below are synopses of each of the stories included in Volume 1 of Gunn's history of science fiction, preceded by summaries of his introductory notes to each one (I included one or two of Gunn's most concise passages in quoted paragraphs).
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| Story of "Gilgamesh and Agga" (2003-1595 BCE). Old Babylonian period, from southern Iraq. Sulaymaniyah Museum, Iraq |
Introduction (Gilgamesh)
Science fiction is concerned with
mankind’s reaction to new technology and new discoveries. At its core is a new
“idea”. In order to reach an socio-technological state in which science
fiction could even be conceived, writers first had to reach a point where they
could characterize mankind as a single race, not separated by nationalistic or
political divisions. Additionally, they needed to be able to express
skepticism of religion, conceive of a future different than their present
state of affairs, and be exposed to new technologies. However, even the
characters of the earliest written epic, Gilgamesh, demonstrated human
aspirations which would eventually surface in mature science fiction: to control his
environment, to control others, to live forever, to protect his culture and
family. In the beginning, these dreams were realized through god-like heroes.
Gilgamesh synopsis (Gunn):
“Gilgamesh was part god—the son of a goddess and a high priest—who became king
of Uruk. But his exuberance, strength, vigor, and arrogance led him to carry
off the maidens and force the young men to work on the city walls and the
temple. Finally, his subjects called on the gods for relief. They responded by
creating a wild man of incredible strength named Enkidu. Eventually, led by a
prostitute, Enkidu came to battle Gilgamesh; after a terrific fight, Gilgamesh
was victorious and the two became friends. They went off together to win fame
by killing a terrible ogre who guarded a vast cedar forest. With the help of
the gods, they succeeded. On their return to Uruk, Ishtar, goddess of love,
offered to be Gilgamesh’s wife, but he refused. Enraged, she asked her father,
Anu, to send the bull of heaven to destroy Gilgamesh, but Enkidu and Gilgamesh
killed the bull. The gods decided that one of them had to die; Enkidu was
chosen by lot. Torn by grief at the death of his friend, stricken by the
thought that he, too, must die, Gilgamesh went to seek immortality from
Utnapishtim, the Babylonian Noah, who was made immortal by the gods. After
great difficulties and perils, Gilgamesh finally reached Utnapishtim but
learned that only the gods can confer immortality, and why should they choose
him? One hope remained: a thorny plant that grew at the bottom of the sea
could rejuvenate old men. Gilgamesh retrieved some, but on his return home, as
he was bathing, a serpent ate the plant (and thereby won the power to shed its
skin and renew its life). Gilgamesh wept, but eventually he returned to Uruk,
having learned to be content with his lot and to rejoice in the work of his
hands.”
Another early myth which points towards some of the
elements of science fiction is the Greek story of Daedalus and Icarus.
Daedalus and Icarus synopsis (Gunn):
“Technology plays a more significant part in the Greek myth of Daedalus, a
craftsman said to have been taught his art by Athene herself. He took as
apprentice his nephew Talos and then killed the boy out of jealousy when he
invented the saw, the potter’s wheel, and the compass. Daedalus had to flee
from Athens and went eventually to Crete. King Minos welcomed him to Knossos.
There Daedalus fathered Icarus, built the maze called the labyrinth for the
bull-headed man called the Minotaur (the result of the unnatural coupling of
Pasiphaé and Zeus’s white bull), and perhaps constructed the bull-headed
bronze servant (the first robot?), also named Talos, who ran three times a day
around the island of Crete, threw rocks at any foreign ships, and destroyed an
army of invading Sardinians by turning himself red-hot in a fire and
destroying them with his embrace (other versions say that Talos was a survivor
of the bronze race of men who sprang from the ash trees, or that he was forged
by Hephaestus in Sardinia and given to Minos by Zeus). Minos finally learned
that his wife’s coupling with the white bull had been made possible by
Daedalus, who constructed for Pasiphaé a hollow wooden cow in which she placed
herself. Minos locked Daedalus and Icarus in the labyrinth; Pasiphaé freed
them, and Daedalus fashioned wings out of feathers and wax. The escape,
however, ended with Icarus ignoring his father’s warning, flying too near the
sun, and plunging into the sea (later named the Icaran sea in his honor) when
his wings melted. The basic story contains many of the elements of later
science fiction: the inventor imprisoned in his own invention, escaping
through his ingenuity, and losing someone close to him because of the
incautious use of the new technology.”
Homer’s epic poem
The Odyssey also had elements of what could be considered science
fiction today. It describes a journey in which the hero encounters many
strange objects and beings. Plato’s works Timaeus and
Critias described Poseidon’s creation of Atlantis, a semi-mythical city,
as well as its eventual destruction by the angry gods. Both the
Bible and Greek mythology incorporated a “Golden Age” into their origin mythologies.
In the Bible this is known as the Garden of Eden, whereas in Greek myth the
"Golden Age" is a period in which perfect beings roam (but which are later
replaced by the inferior savages of the harsh "Iron Age"). In contrast
to these “falling” states, Plato’s Republic described a possible "utopia"
of the future. Early Greek satire also hinted at one or two science fiction
elements to come. For example, in Aristophanes’ The Clouds Socrates hangs in
a "sky basket", and in Aristophanes’ The Birds the Athenians have birds build a
"sky wall" to halt sacrifices to the gods.
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| Art: William Strang, 1894 |
A True Story (opening excerpt) synopsis: Lucian announces from the outset that he is going to relate a “tall tale”, just as other writers such as Homer have done in the past. He reports that he and his crew had sailed into the Atlantic and after braving a great storm had discovered an island of carnivorous sex-plants. After escaping this nefarious island, his ship is caught in a great wind and blown skyward, and eventually lands on the surface of the moon. There, they meet another repatriated Earthman named Endymion, who is leading the “moonmen” in a war against the “sunmen” (led by their king Phaethon). When Endymion’s giant spiders spin a web connecting the moon with the Morningstar (Venus) in order to colonize it, his forces are soon engaged by the sunmen’s opposing army in a heavenly battle. Each of the armies employ soldiers and hybrid cavalry mounts created from fruits, vegetables and animals. The moonmen are eventually defeated and the sunmen create a cloud barrier between the Earth and the moon, putting the moon into bleak darkness. A treaty is then signed where the moonmen give fealty to the sunmen and both agree to colonize the Morningstar on equal terms. After describing the strange sex lives of the moonmen, Lucian’s ship departs from the moon surface and then visits a sky city populated by lamp-people (one of which is his own lamp from his Roman home). Afterwards, Lucian and his crew visit Cloudcuckooland (and references Aristophanes’ The Clouds). Eventually, they land back on Earth and continue their journey on the sea.
(Gunn's introductory notes title: "Strange Creatures and Far Traveling")
After Rome falls, fantastic literature in
Europe survived in the form of oral epics:
- 8th C: Beowulf
- 12th C.: The Nibelungenlied, Arthurian romances (by the poet Chrétien de Troyes), and Parzival (Wolfram von Eschenbach) which describes Sir Percival’s chivalric search for Arthur and the Holy Grail.)
- 1321: Dante’s Inferno (The Divine Comedy) (analyzed HERE).
- 14th C.: Bocaccio’s Tales, Decameron (various tales of fanciful nature)
- 1357-71: The Voyages and Travels of Sir John Mandeville (Anonymous, probably a collection of various tales)
At the same time the Middle East produced
One Thousand and One Nights (The Arabian Nights), which would later be
reborn as stories involving Ali Baba, Aladdin, Sindbad, flying carpets, rocs,
etc.
The Voyages and Travels of Sir John Mandeville (Ch. 18
& 19) synopsis:
The English knight Sir John Mandeville journeys around the world. In this
excerpt he describes the islands and peoples of South Asia (Java), who are
either wealthy nobles, primitive savages or bizarre fanatics. Some live in giant
snail shells, while others engage in cannibalism and/or fight dragons. He also
describes a race of people who have dog heads, and another who have eyes in
their shoulders.
Full text on Project Gutenberg
3. Utopia (excerpt) (Thomas More, 1516)
(Gunn's introductory notes title: "The Good Place That Is No Place")
In 1294 (while jailed for anti-Church sentiments promoting scientific
thought), the Franciscan friar Roger Bacon wrote a letter in which he
predicted engine-powered ships, planes, submarines and cars of the future.
Elements of the fantastic and the supernatural also surfaced at the end of the
Middle Ages in works such as Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales (1387) and Malory’s
Morte d’Arthur (1469).
In 1492, Columbus discovered America, and these
undiscovered lands soon became the locales of even more fantastic literature.
In 1516, the scholar Sir Thomas More wrote Utopia, which described an island
“no-place” which had all the features of a political paradise. Other utopian
works to follow will include Campanella’s The City of the Sun (1623), Francis
Bacon’s The New Atlantis (1624), and Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels
(1726).
Even later, an opposite reaction to this “good” utopia will
appear in the form of “anti-utopias” (dystopias, “bad places”) in books like
Butler’s Erewhon (1872), Bellamy’s Looking Backward (1888), Wells’ The New
Utopia, etc.
Utopia (excerpt from Bk II) synopsis : A sailor
named Raphael describes (to Sir Thomas) a “Utopia” (“no place”) on a distant
island where the political system (a “commonwealth”) is much fairer than any
other found on Earth. There is no rich and no poor, and everyone is treated
with respect. Raphael wishes that the greedy men of his homeland could be
removed so that this much fairer system could be instituted.
4. The City of the Sun (excerpt) (Tommaso Campanella, 1602)
(Gunn's introductory notes title: "The New Science and the Old Religion")
In 1517 Martin Luther instigated the Protestant Reformation, which
eventually allowed the birth of new technologies in astronomy, map-making, mineralogy, firearms, microscopic research, and mathematics.
In 1532,
Ludovico Ariosto wrote Orlando Furioso, an epic poem where the
character Astolpho journeys to the moon in search of his friend Orlando’s lost
wits (the moon is rumored to hold everything that has ever been lost on
Earth).
Written in 1605, Miguel de Cervantes’ Don Quixote is
considered the first novel and, from a science-fictional viewpoint, it
presented realistic implications of living in a fantasy world.
In 1602,
Tommaso Campanella (another imprisoned monk philosopher critical of current
social affairs) wrote another utopian novel,
The City of the Sun.
The City of the Sun (excerpt) synopsis:
A sea captain describes his visit to a utopian land named Taprobane. This
“city of the sun”, settled by refugees from India, celebrates architecture,
mathematics, biology, zoology, art and all natural sciences. They equate the
sun as a father God and the Earth as a mother figure. All men are treated with
fellowship and love.
5. The New Atlantis (Francis Bacon, 1627)
(Gunn's introductory notes title: "Experience, Experiment, and the Battle for Men’s Minds")
Francis Bacon (another fallen political figure) promoted the idea of
empiricism, or science based on experimental results. For this, he is known as
the father of the scientific method. In 1627 he wrote The New Atlantis,
about an island which bases its knowledge on empirical research results.
Through his efforts, the Philosophical Society was eventually formed as a
scientific organization, and in 1662 became the still-existing Royal
Society.
The New Atlantis synopsis: After surviving through a great storm, the narrator and his crew discover a utopian island society. This
island is apparently blessed by God (as signified by a glowing pillar of
light), and the inhabitants secretly obtain knowledge from other nations through secret agents
(they do not reveal their own existence to the outside world). The people of New Atlantis maintain
laboratories both deep in the ground and high in the sky, where they develop
advanced technology in the fields of medicine, physics, genetics, sound, math,
optics, etc. Their main research facility (“foundation”) is named Salomon’s
House, in respect to the Biblical Solomon, King of the Jews. Once the research
is complete, the scientists decide what secrets may be distributed to the
public. At the end of the story, the king permits the narrator to spread the
news of this secret island to the outside world.
6. Somnium, or Lunar Astronomy (Johannes Kepler, 1610)
(Gunn's introductory notes title: "A New Look at the Heavens and Another Trip to the Moon")
In the 16th and 17th centuries, Copernicus, Galileo and Kepler
established that the Earth orbited the Sun. In 1610, Johannes Kepler also wrote
Somnium, or Lunar Astronomy, which contained the first serious (as
opposed to satirical) scientific attempt at describing a lunar landscape.
Somnium, or Lunar Astronomy synopsis:
Kepler has a dream in which he discovers a strange book. In the book, an Icelandic boy named
Duracotus is (unintentionally) sent abroad by his mother and ends up studying with the Danish
scientist Tycho Brahe. When Duracotus returns, his mother decides to teach him of
the Icelanders' special relationship to the northern spirits. She summonses a
demon, who explains to him how they are able to transport humans back and
forth from Levania (the moon). Duracotus learns that the demons can only
thrive at night or during a solar eclipse. There are two kinds of inhabitants
on the Moon, the Subvolvans (who view Earth, or Volva, as their own moon) and
the Privolvans (who live on the far side of the moon and never see the Earth).
Both grow to monstrous sizes and have short lives. Kepler eventually wakes up,
leaving the book unfinished.
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| (art ca. 1708) |
7. A Voyage to the Moon (excerpt) (Cyrano de Bergerac, 1657)
(Gunn's introductory notes title: "Commuting to the Moon")
In the 17th C., the moon seemed more attainable than ever due to the
availability of more powerful telescopes, and inspired even more moon-related
stories. In 1638, Francis Godwin wrote The Man in the Moone, in which
swan-like birds called “gansas” accidentally pull the protagonist’s chariot to
the moon, which is populated by a utopian society. In 1657, Cyrano de
Bergerac wrote his own moon-story, A Voyage to the Moon (Voyage dans la
Lune, or L’Autre monde ou les états et empires de la Lune).
A Voyage to the Moon (excerpt) synopsis: In
this satire, Cyrano captures dew in glasses attached to his body. When the sun
pulls the dew up towards the heavens, it carries de Bergerac into the air as well. After a
crash landing in French Canada, he decides to use the lighter-than-air
properties of bone-marrow for another attempt. In the meantime, soldiers
capture his vehicle and attach fireworks to it for entertainment purposes.
Cyrano leaps on board but the fireworks are set off and drive him and his
carriage into space. After landing on the moon, he discovers the biblical Tree
of Life (Knowledge).
In 1662 de Bergerac also wrote
Voyage to the Sun, in which he relates how he escaped from prison by
focusing the sun’s rays into a box to create a whirlwind. Carried into the
sky, he reaches the sun where he then meets a race of birds living in another
utopian society.
Wiki Entry
Other notable books containing a journey to the
moon (leading up to mankind’s actual first moon landing in 1969) include
Gabriel Daniel’s A Voyage to the World of Cartesius (1691), Ralph
Morris’ John Daniel (1751),Aratus’ A Voyage to the Moon (1793),
George Fowler’s A Flight to the Moon (1813), George Tucker’s
A Voyage to the Moon (1827), Edgar Allan Poe’s
Hans Pfaall (1840), Jules Verne’s
From the Earth to the Moon (1865), H. G. Wells’s
The First Men in the Moon (1901), and Robert A. Heinlein’s
The Man Who Sold the Moon (1950).
(Gunn's introductory notes title: "The Age of Reason and the Voice of Dissent")
Scientific knowledge continued to grow in the 17th and 18th centuries.
In 1687 Isaac Newton published his breakthrough scientific text
Principia Mathematica, which eventually ushered in the “Age of Reason”. However, this rise in
scientific thought also became a target of opposition in the form of satire.
In 1726 Jonathan Swift wrote Gulliver’s Travels, a satire which
attacked, among other things, religion, politics, humanity and the new trend towards scientific research. There are four stories in
Gulliver’s Travels:
- Voyage to Lilliput: Gulliver meets tiny people who at first seem to be admirably brave are later revealed to be as petty as their stature.
- Brobdingnag: Gulliver encounter giants who at first seem gross and undisciplned, but are later revealed to be a generous and enlightened people.
- Laputa: Gulliver visits a flying city where society is organized around science at the cost of their humanity. In this tale he directly criticizes the empirically-based research pioneered by Francis Bacon and the Royal Society he founded.
- Houyhnhnms: Gulliver meets the Houyhnhnms who appear to be so superior to Gulliver and his countrymen that Gulliver must declare even himself to be an inferior “Yahoo” (Swift did not believe that man was inherently good).
“A Voyage to Laputa” (excerpt) synopsis:
- Swift is invited on an ocean journey by an old friend. Unfortunately his sloop is raided by pirates and Swift is forced to cast off alone in a canoe. Wandering amongst uninhabited islands, he spots a floating city and soon asks them for aid.
- Swift is drawn up to the island on a chair held on strings. On the island (named Laputa), he encounters a strange people who are only concerned with mathematics and music. They are unable to enjoy life because they are constantly worried about the destruction of the Earth due to possible astronomical phenomena. They also ignore their women, who often try to escape the floating island to live amongst the land people.
- Laputa is held aloft by a gigantic magnetic lodestone at its center, which is manipulated so that it alternately repels or is attracted to the magnetic elements of Earth below it. By angling the lodestone, the island can be made to float in various directions. When a land-based kingdom needs to be disciplined, the king of Laputa can threaten to crush it (by landing Laputa on it). However, this tactic was once foiled when the city of Lindalino erected piercing, magnetic towers which would have caused Laputa to crack in half had it tried to land on top of the city.
- Swift becomes bored with the obsessed mathematicians of Laputa and so asks to be returned to the surface of the Earth. He is dropped off at the city of Lagado and introduced there. In Lagado, Swift discovers that the city is in disrepair because the scientists (influenced by the scientists of Laputa) are constantly trying to improve productivity with technology, but are never able to actually complete any projects.
- Swift is given a tour of the scientific academy, and there he meets several scientists ("projectors") who are engaged in various unfeasible experiments (such as the conversion of excrement to food, the elimination of spoken language through a physical inventory of display objects, and the teaching of math by swallowing wafers inscribed with information.
- Swift meets more scientists in the field of social science, who propose various impractical ideas in order to conduct government and select new appointees to city positions. Swift suggests his own obviously outlandish ideas (deciphering secret messages through nonsense codes, etc.) and these are in turn praised.
9. The Journey of Niels Klim to the World Underground (excerpt) (Ludvig
Holberg, 1741)
(Gunn's introductory notes title: "Imaginary Voyages in the Other Direction")
Many new developments (such as James Watts’ 1769 steam engine) soon led
to the Industrial Age. With the invention of the printing press, a new middle
class book consumer also appeared. In 1741, Ludvig Holberg wrote The Journey
of Niels Klim to the World Underground. This was another book aimed at social
criticism (to define "virtue and vice") but it also had a more involved story, and increased realism through its use of fictional
documentation (letters, etc.) and believable heroes.
Full synopsis (Gunn): “Niels Klim, an impoverished university graduate, seeks to make a reputation for himself by exploring a mysterious cave in Norway. He falls through the earth, orbits a central planet, and fights off a griffin. Then he is pulled by the griffin to the planet where he discovers intelligent, mobile trees who consider him so flighty and shallow that he is good for nothing but carrying messages. He tries to get a law passed to over-throw the equality of the sexes but is condemned to be flown to the “firmament” (the inside of the earth). There he encounters all kinds of civilizations of monkeys, tigers, bears, gamecocks, bass fiddles, ice creatures, and finally humans. For the humans he trains cavalry, manufactures muskets, builds ships, and leads them into battle, where he is victorious. He succeeds the emperor and subdues most of the kingdoms of the “firmament” before power corrupts him. His people rebel against his cruelty, and trying to hide, he falls back through a hole in a cave and finds himself in Norway again.”
Niels Klim Wiki Entry
In 1752, Voltaire wrote
Micromégas. This book is not excerpted in Gunn's anthology, but is an important science-fictional satire. It features an advanced alien being as its protagonist, who makes "first contact" with mankind.
Micromégas synopsis: Micromégas, a gargantuan alien from Sirius, is banished for expressing interest in insects (which are too small for Sirians to detect). At Saturn, he meets the secretary of the Academy of Saturn and they decide to visit Earth together. At first they fail to detect any life on Earth at all due to their great size (in comparison to Earth life forms), but they eventually detect a few humans and are surprised that such tiny beings are sentient. The humans try to impress the aliens with the writings of Aristotle, Descartes, Malebranche, Leibniz and Locke, but these authors only prompt laughter from the star travelers. Micromégas then leaves a book with the humans which will supposedly explain the universe to them. However, when the humans later open the book, they only find blank pages.
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| 1831 Frontispiece |
(Gunn's introductory notes title: "Science and Literature: When Worlds Collide")
In the late 18th C. scientific exploration turned from the “hard”
sciences of astronomy and physics to the more earthbound sciences of biology,
psychology, and evolution. Mesmer also began to develop his idea of hypnosis
(“mesmerism”). In 1764, Horace Walpole wrote the first gothic novel,
The Castle of Otranto. This book featured Gothic trappings such as a frightened woman in a
medieval castle confronting supernatural horror (amongst other Gothic
elements). This was followed by another Gothic novel in 1786: William
Beckford’s Vathek.
Finally, in 1818, advances in
electricity, biology (Darwinism) and Gothic literature inspired the first true
science fiction novel, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. In 1826 Shelley
also wrote The Last Man, in which a plague kills everyone on Earth
except one man in the 21st Century (which turns out to be no different than
the world in 1826)
*** I analyzed Frankenstein HERE. ***
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| 1880 (http://www.hawthorneinsalem.org/images/image.php?name=MMD2810) |
11. “Rappaccini’s Daughter” (Nathaniel Hawthorne, 1844)
(Gunn's introductory notes title: "Science as Symbol")
In 1830, Richard Adams Locke wrote The Moon Hoax (“Discoveries In the
Moon Lately Made at the Cape of Good Hope, by Sir John Herschel”), which led
people to believe that telescopes had detected living creatures and buildings
on the moon. Famous writers such as Darwin, Tennyson and Goethe praised modern
technology, but others like William Blake and Ralph Waldo Emerson were more
hesitant about the implications of industrialization. Another one of these
skeptics was Nathaniel Hawthorne. Hawthorne became intrigued by science and
used it (mesmerism, artificial animals, immortality elixirs, etc.) in some of
his stories. However, he generally used it for its symbolic (and didactic)
value, using science to highlight a "moral choice" (just as he used Puritan values in The Scarlet Letter).
“Rappaccini’s Daughter” synopsis: A mad
scientist exposes her daughter to poisonous plants in order to make her a
poisonous being herself (and invulnerable to disease). The speaker falls in love with her and unwittingly
begins to take on poisonous characteristics himself. His friend gives the
speaker a “cure” which has the power to cure the effects of the poisonous
plant. When the girl realizes how her father has manipulated her into becoming
a poisonous creature, she drinks the cure in an act of rebellious
self-destruction.
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| Art: Fritz Eichenberg for Tales of Edgar Allan Poe (Random House, 1944) |
12. “Mellonta Tauta” (Edgar Allan Poe, 1849)
(Gunn's introductory notes title: "Anticipations of the Future")
The work of Edgar Allan Poe was later presented by publisher Hugo
Gernsback as a model for his science fiction pulp magazine Amazing Stories. He stressed the importance of scientific explanations for unusual phenomena. More importantly, Poe wrote only for an emotional effect, rather than to educate or convey a moral/political message. He created the detective story, influenced modern poetry and perfected the short story form, especially in horror and fantasy. Like others, Poe became fascinated by the possibilities suggested by mesmerism
and used this technique in some of his stories ("A Tale of the Ragged Mountains", "The Facts In the Case of Mr. Valdemar","Mesmeric Revelation"). After writing about a moon journey by balloon ("The Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Pfall"), he accused Locke’s The
Moon Hoax of lifting ideas from his notes for a sequel. In
1833, Poe wrote “Ms. Found in a Bottle”, his first pseudo-scientific story
employing the “hollow earth” concept. Other Poe works with a science-fictional
bent include The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym and “The Thousand-and-Second
Tale of Scheherazade”, which described modern technology in the eyes of a man
of Sindbad’s time.
“Mellonta Tauta” synopsis: In the first
true story of the future, a balloonist of 1000 years in the future (2848) describes
his experiences on the balloon "Skylark", and then sends off a last message as his ship heads for a
crash. It includes satirical impressions of Poe’s own time but distorted through the
mists of time (for example, the names of cities are rough variations of their current names, and Sir Francis Bacon is referred to as "Sir Hog").
*** I analyzed more of Poe's work HERE. ***
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| (from an Amazing Stories reprint, Dec. 1926) |
(Gunn's introductory notes title: "Expanding the Vision")
In the
late 19th century, more writers began to try including science fiction elements: Honore de Balzac used an elixir of life and metal transmutation in his Gothic stories, Herman Melville wrote about an automaton, Edward Everett Hale wrote about men going into orbit by accident while working in a brick room, and Mark Twain wrote the time travel fantasy A Connecticut
Yankee in King Arthur’s Court (1889). In an 1898 work he even foreshadowed the
concept of television ("From the London Times of 1904"). Another important science fiction writer of this
period was an Irish immigrant to New York, Fitz-James O’Brien. In 1858 he wrote “The Diamond Lens”, which
began a trend of micro-universe stories in the industry. In contrast to
Shelley's romanticism, Hawthorne's moralizing and Poe's irony, O’Brien employed a more "realistic" tone in his fantastic tale,
and so this could be considered the first “modern” science fiction story.
“The Diamond Lens” synopsis:
After speaking to a dead scientist named Leeuwenhoek in a séance, the speaker
learns the secret to observing the microverse. In a drop of water (on a slide)
he observes a beautiful female creature and falls in love with her. However,
she eventually withers and dies. The speaker realizes that she had died
because the water droplet had evaporated.
Full text on Project Gutenberg
Below are a few other
examples of O’Brien’s stories:
• “The Wonder-smith”:
Gypsies manufacture an army of toy soldiers to kill all the Christian children
at Christmas.
• “From Hand to Mouth”: A man sits in a
hotel room surrounded by disembodied hands and months.
•
“What Was It? A Mystery”: This may be the earliest of the
“invisible-creature” stories.
• “The Lost Room”:
The narrator finds his hotel room occupied by strangers he cannot evict.
• “How I Overcame My Gravity”: An inventor makes an
antigravity machine using a gyroscope.
14. Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea/Around the Moon (excerpts)
(Jules Verne, 1865-1870)
(Gunn's introductory notes title: "The Indispensable Frenchman")
In the late 18th century, electricity replaced steam as an industrial
energy source. This inspired further technological tales. Although the
Frenchman Jules Verne is not known for not “inventing” anything
(conceptually, at least), his books made fantastic literature popular. His
explorer-heroes used technology of the future to create suspense. His writings also
became a model for Gernsback's 1926 Amazing Stories, due to his journeys' reliance on futuristic technology. Below are some of his
major science-fiction-related works.
1870: Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea
1875: The Mysterious Island
** I analyzed Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea HERE. ***
 |
| Art: Émile Bayard, Paris (Hetzel), circa 1870 |
Around The Moon (Ch. 17, 18) synopsis: Three members of the Baltimore Gun Club have launched themselves and their space capsule into a moon orbit. They marvel at the lunar landscape and theorize on how the craters and radiating lines on the surface were formed. Later, one of them seems to spot ruins of some kind. Although the moon is apparently now uninhabited, they theorize that it must have once been able to support a thriving civilization.
(Gunn's introductory notes title: "Lost Civilizations and Ancient Knowledge")
The
arrival of intellectualism and technology also triggered a counter interest in
primitivism as found in “lost races”. These primal social entities were used
to promote the simpler, anti-technological qualities found in human courage
and strength. Nonetheless, lost world stories eventually began to be situated
in space, inside the Earth, in an atom, in the past (Atlantis) or in other
dimensions. The most famous lost race author was H. Rider Haggard. In 1885,
King Solomon’s Mine introduced the adventurer Allan Quatermain. This was later
followed by the 1887 lost world novel She.
*** I analyzed She HERE. ***
Rider’s lost race stories were later further developed by Edgar
Rice Burroughs (in his Mars/Barsoom, Venus and Pellucidar series), A. Merritt (The Moon Pool), Arthur Conan Doyle (The Lost World, 1912), and James Hilton (Lost Horizon, 1933). The modern iteration of the lost world story can be found in heroic fantasy or alien abduction stories.
16. Looking Backward, 2000-1887 (excerpt) (Edward Bellamy, 1888)
(Gunn's introductory notes title: "The New Frontier")
In the late 19th century, utopian visions were still being described in
literature, but a contrasting view later appeared in the form of “dystopias”,
or “anti-utopias”. Some notable works describing a possible utopia or dystopia
follow.
1871: Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s The Coming Race: The Vril-Ya
live in an underground utopian society, and live off of a form of electricity
called “Vril”.
1872: Samuel Butler’s Erewhon: In New Zealand, a
utopian society has gotten rid of machines, fearing that they may eventually
take over mankind.
1888: Edward Bellamy’s
Looking Backward, 2000-1887 is another satirical utopia but instead of
being situated in a “lost world”, it is an uplifting vision placed (for the first time) in the "new frontier" of the future. It revived interest in utopian thought.
Looking Backward synopsis:
A man from 1887 uses mesmerism as a cure for insomnia, but ends up
over-sleeping. He eventually wakes up 130 years in the future and discovers
that socialism has solved the world’s problems. He later finds out that he had
only dreamed that he was from 1887 and has always been a citizen of the year
2000. Wiki Entry
1899: H.G. Wells: When the Sleeper Awakes: A man wakes
up in the future but, in contrast to Bellamy’s socialist utopia, the laborers
are oppressed. This is the first example of “dystopian fiction”, but other
dystopic books would soon follow and become just as important (Forster's "The Machine Stops", Zamiatin's We, Huxley's Brave New World (1932), Orwell's 1984 (1949)).
 |
| The Complete Short Stories of Ambrose Bierce (1970) |
17. “The Damned Thing” (Ambrose Bierce, 1898)
(Gunn's introductory notes title: "New Magazines, New Readers, New Writers")
In 1891 the first mass-oriented magazines began publication, and only five
years later the even more “middle class” pulps arrived. Some of the writers
exploring science fiction concepts in these publications included H.G. Wells,
Jack London, Mark Twain and Ambrose Bierce. Bierce drove his narratives by
creating a sense of tension between realism and fantasy. For example, in 1898,
he wrote “The Damned Thing”, which employed realism, natural dialogue and
psychological undertones in a story featuring an invisible monster (although this concept had already been touched on in Fitz-James O'Brien's "What Was It? A Mystery" (1859) and Guy de Maupassant's "Horla" (1887)). Other science fictional Bierce stories include "A Horseman In the Sky", "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge", A Psychological Shipwreck", and 1909’s “Moxon’s Master”, which was one of the earliest robot
stories.
“The Damned Thing” analysis: An outdoors-man is
killed by an invisible creature. He theorizes that the creatures’ color is
beyond the spectrum of human visibility. Wiki Entry
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| (http://www.forgottenfutures.com/game/ff1/night.htm) |
18. “With the Night Mail (A Story of 2000 AD)” (Rudyard Kipling, 1909)
(Gunn's introductory notes title: "A Flying Start")
In the early years of the 20th century, the zeppelin became a popular
mode of futuristic travel (at least until the burning of the Hindenburg in
1937). In fact, Rudyard Kipling assumed that the zeppelin would eventually
rule the skies of the future (as opposed to airplanes). His story “With the
Night Mail (A Story of 2000 AD)” is the first story to thoroughly place its
narrative entirely in the future, with no linguistic concessions to the reader
of the “past” (throughout, it employs unfamiliar “future terminology”). Unlike
earlier utopias/dystopias, Kipling used his future setting as a backdrop, not
as an example of a particular social statement (or travelogue). This kind of
story would not appear again until John W. Campbell began editing Astounding magazine, as seen in his publication of Robert A. Heinlein’s works in 1939.
Kipling's also wrote one other science fiction story, "Easy as A.B.C." (1912).
“With the Night Mail (A Story of 2000 AD)” analysis: In the
year 2000, the narrator joins the crew of a commerce zeppelin (a part of the
Aerial Board of Control airfleet). During its journey it encounters various
other sea and airships in distress.
Full text on Project Gutenberg
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| (https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/illustration-from-the-star-by-h-g-wells) |
19. The Star (H.G. Wells, 1897)
(Gunn's introductory notes title: "The Father of Modern Science Fiction")
Just as Verne’s works did, H.G. Wells’ popular books helped to excite
the public demand for science-fiction. Hugo Gernsback also cited Wells as one of his
models for his “scienti-fiction” magazines in the 1920s (in particular
Amazing Stories). In later years, Wells’ writings turned into a kind of
propagandist fiction designed to promote a form of socialism aimed at helping
the poor. Some of his earlier, more famous science fiction works follow.
•
1895: The Time Machine
• 1896:
The Island of Doctor Moreau
• 1897:
The Invisible Man
• 1898:
The War of the Worlds
• 1899:
When the Sleeper Awakes
• 1901:
The First Men On the Moon
• 1934:
The Shape of Things To Come
“Ideas exploded in his stories. Some he adapted from the work of others. Most
seemed original: mechanical time travel, invisibility through chemicals or by
speed, attack by extraterrestrials, specialization through biology, superman,
parallel worlds, warfare using tanks or airplanes, the atomic bomb, world
catastrophe, alien influences on human evolution, man-eating plants, celestial
bodies coming close to earth, interplanetary television, prehistoric people,
conquest by ants, attack by sea creatures... His particular concern was
evolution: perhaps human evolution isn’t over, or other creatures such as ants
or giant squids, may evolve into competitors.” (Gunn)
“The Star” synopsis:
A giant, glowing object approaches the solar system and collides with Neptune.
Humanity is fascinated by the spectacle but one mathematician calculates that
it will cause the end of the world. The object seems to be headed only for
Jupiter, but Jupiter’s gravity well causes it to change trajectory towards
Earth. It nearly misses the Earth, but its approach causes massive tidal waves
and earthquakes. Oblivious to the great loss of life on Earth, aliens on Mars
observe the episode and remark that the Earth has been mostly spared, since
the continents have not changed much in their shape.
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| Amazing Stories, June 1926 |
See also The Road to Science Fiction #2: From Wells to Heinlein
