A Preliminary And Somewhat Abbreviated Version Of My Thoughts On the Question Of the First Science Fiction

Photo by Sebastian Kanczok on Unsplash

The following is taken from a Facebook comment I had occasion to make earlier this evening, and it provides a decent starting point for a subject I've been meaning to post about, y'know, one of these days. I has been lightly edited, largely to insert links to sources and to bold or italicize words emphasized with asterisks in the original. 

We need to start by asking ourselves what the value, what the function, of first-ness actually is. It's useful to be able to point to Shelly (or Cavendish) when dudebros are insisting that science fiction somehow belongs to men. It's useful to be able to point to the pre-1800s proto-examples when trying to establish the artistic and literary legitimacy of science fiction as a genre. If we want to talk about what science fiction *does* and why we write it, I personally would start with The Golem of Prague.

The first story to be called "science fiction", using that term, was R. H. Horne's "The Poor Artist; Or, Seven Eye-sights and One Object: "Science in Fable"", which was described as science fiction by William Wilson (no connection to the Edgar Allan Poe character of the same name) in 1851, in his book "A Little Earnest Book upon a Great Old Subject: With the Story of the Poet-Lover", but I don't think anyone would call The Poor Artist the first piece of science fiction in any other meaningful sense.

Often, our goal is to trace lineage, but for that, we need to decide what we think the defining characteristic of science fiction actually is. Is it the thought experiment? The exploration of then-contemporary technology or scientific ideas? Stories set in the future? Or in space? The presence of any speculative element not clearly magical in origin? If the lattermost, what are we to do with story elements of religious origin, especially from cultures where religion is not primarily a matter of belief? How much store ought we set by, for example, Focoult's four categories of technology ((I) technologies of production, which permit us to produce, transform, or manipulate things; (2) technologies of sign systems, which permit us to use signs, meanings, symbols, or signification; (3) technologies of power, which determine the conduct of individuals and submit them to certain ends or domination, an objectivizing of the subject; (4) technologies of the self, which permit individuals to effect by their own means or with the help of others a certain number of operations on their own bodies and souls, thoughts, conduct, and way of being, so as to transform themselves in order to attain a certain state of happiness, purity, wisdom, perfection, or immortality.) which incorporate both religion and language? 

When exploring the history of science fiction, its development as a genre, Frankenstein is the most useful starting point for most purposes, since it marks the, I don't know the mathematical term, the point where the exponential curve starts going up faster than it's going forward, in terms of how much science fiction was being written. By 1832, at least one new science fiction story was being published every year. It is also the most recent text with any plausible claim to the title of "first science fiction", which is interesting in its own right.

So, what do we want out of establishing what the "first piece of science fiction" is? Because that's going to determine our answer.