Proto-science fiction

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Proto-Science-Fiction or Proto-SF is a generic literary term that describes the forerunners of science fiction .

The Proto-SF includes works that have characteristics of science fiction and / or deal with typical subjects (lunar journeys, dirigible airships, etc.), but which appeared at a time when science and technology and their development did not yet have any effect on society unfolded what is seen as an essential prerequisite for the genre to emerge. This effectiveness, which reached into the everyday life of every individual, was not given until the end of the 18th century at the earliest.

Brian W. Aldiss named Mary Shelley's Frankenstein or The Modern Prometheus in Billion Year Spree as the first science fiction novel and the origin of the genre , which was published in 1818. Between the beginning of the 19th century and the end of the Second World War, when American science fiction became the model for science fiction par excellence, there were quite independent developments in the various literatures with corresponding forms and conventions. These include (with their main representatives):

In the USA there were a number of forerunners, in particular the inventor novel ( Edisonade ), mostly published as a Groschenheft series, for example Edward S. Ellis ' The Steam Man of the Prairies (1868) as the first of this form . 1926 with the appearance of Hugo Gernsback's Amazing Stories then marked the beginning of modern science fiction in the USA. This beginning was in turn strongly influenced by British authors, insofar as Gernsbach began to reprint the works of HG Wells in Amazing Stories .

Some works of the Proto-SF

Proto-SF in the narrower sense includes those (earlier) works that do not belong to one of the forerunner national literary genres, in particular all relevant works published before 1810.

(sorted chronologically in ascending order)

See also science fiction years before 1810 .

literature

  • Philip Babcock Gove: The Imaginary Voyage in Prose Fiction: A History of its Criticism and a Guide for its Study, with an Annotated Check List of 215 Imaginary Voyages from 1700 to 1800. Columbia University Press, New York 1941.
  • James Gunn (Ed.): The Road to Science Fiction. Volume 1: From Gilgamesh to Wells. Scarecrow Press, 2002, ISBN 978-0-8108-4414-8 .
  • Marjorie Hope Nicolson: Voyages to the Moon. The Macmillan Company, New York 1948.
  • Brian M. Stableford : Proto SF . In: John Clute , Peter Nicholls : The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction . 3rd edition (online edition), version dated October 24, 2018.
  • Brian M. Stableford: The New Atlantis: A Narrative History of Scientific Romance. Vol. 1: The Origins of Scientific Romance. Wildside Press, Rockville, Maryland 2016.
  • PG Walsh: The Roman Novel: The Satyricon of Petronius and the Metamorphoses of Apuleius. Cambridge at the University Press, Cambridge 1970.
  • Henry Weber (Ed.): Popular Romances: Consisting of Imaginary Voyages and Travels. Containing Gulliver's Travels, Journey To The World Under Ground, The Life And Adventures of Peter Wilkins, The Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, And The History of Automathes. James Ballantyne and Company, Edinburgh 1812.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Brian Aldiss: Billion Year Spree: The True History of Science Fiction. Doubleday, 1973, ISBN 0-385-08887-6 , p. 7 ff.