Great Moments in Sci-Fi
Science fiction has often in the past marginalized or derided as not serious literature, but the work of a number of gufted men and women have brought sci-fi into the center of modern entertainment. Who were these people, and how'd they do it?
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Utopia (1515)
Some consider Thomas More’s Utopia to be the first science fiction story, in that it posits an alternative society developed along rational lines from what we know about humanity and nature. It displays a concern with social structure, morality, and ethics that’s a hallmark of modern science fiction. As the work became popular it paved the way for utopian fiction, a variety of literature in which fictional societies are used to explore unusual or radical ideas are explored.More »){kind=link}
The Dream (1634)
Johannes Kepler’s treatise Somnium might be called the first “hard” science fiction. In it, the great astronomer – responsible, among other things, for our understanding that the orbits of the planets are ellipses, not circles – used the device of a student being magically transported to the Moon in a dream to explore serious problems of lunar astronomy.More »){kind=link}
Frankenstein (1818)
Mary Shelley's novel started out as a challenge among three famous Romantic figures – herself,her husband Percy Shelley, and Lord Byron – to write a fantastic story; only Mary Shelly's response became famous. Twentieth century film adaptations have obscured the groundbreaking science fiction nature of the story. Viktor Frankenstein uses technology and natural theory to advance the capabilities of humanity, in this case by reanimating dead tissue; but the greater part of the story really examines the sociological and ethical implications of this act. In its most heartbreaking passages it does so from the standpoint of the monster, who learns about society and his lack of place in it from his position as a freak of man's contrivance.){kind=link}
Journey to the Centre of the Earth (1864)
Jules Verne's adventure stories, which also included From the Earth to the Moon (1865) and Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (1869), combined action-driven nineteenth-century melodrama with carefully assembled and extrapolated scientific knowledge. Verne describes in detail the principles by which the action takes place, while still keeping his focus on the plot. In these novels the protagonists often encounter alien environments and societies, creating the classic science fiction juxtaposition between other possibilities of experience and the ones with which we are familiar.){kind=link}
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1889)
Mark Twain's classic novel starts out as a romp, as Twain has fun inserting his modern Yankee into the alien medieval milieu. The second half, however, becomes progressively darker, as Twain explores how modern ideas destroy the society of chivalry and simplicity into which his visitor intruded; in science fiction terms a kind of utopia is spoiled by the introduction of values inherent in the industrialist capitalist society emerging in the nineteenth century.){kind=link}
The Time Machine (1895)
H.G. Wells is celebrates as a pioneering science fiction author, but in contrast to Verne Wells was relatively unconcerned with the adumbration of scientific theory; his emphasis was always on social commentary, and it is often pointed out that in works like The Time Machine he did little to posit how the protagonist's time travel was actually accomplished. In fact there is little difference between stories in which something is accomplished by science and others in which the mechanism is magic, as in "The Man Who Could Work Miracles." This is not to minimize Wells's contribution to speculative literature, inspiring countless writers to explore ideas of time and space for the purpose of examining our own world.){kind=link}
We (1920)
Yevgeny Zamyatin’s novel is a milestone in utopian literature, dramatizing the direct road to totalitarianism created by the conformism inherent in the concept of an ideal society. We’s legacy is not so much in its own terms as in its acknowledged influence on two of the definitive literary evocations of utopia and dystopia: Aldous Huxley’s ironic Brave New World (1932) and George Orwell’s seminal Nineteen Eighty-Four (1950).){kind=link}
Amazing Stories Magazine (1926)
The pulp magazines had a huge impact on science fiction during the twentieth century, creating competing venues in which the best writers could reach broad audiences and expand the genre’s appeal. Amazing Stories, founded by Hugo Gernsback, was the first English-language pulp devoted solely to science fiction and with the other pulps helped to create a collective identity both among sci-fi writers and readers. Gernsback is often called the “father of science fiction,” and the World Science Fiction Society’s prestigious Hugo Award was named in his honor.In 1937 John W. Campbell, at Astounding Science Fiction, began driving the sci-fi pulps toward an emphasis on quality, giving a start to important later figures like Robert A. Heinlein.){kind=link}
Metropolis (1927)
Fritz Lang’s Metropolis is one of the first films to conjure a future-scape, exploiting the visual capacity of the motion picture to create a futuristic look and feel. Metropolis brought science fiction’s extrapolation of technology and mechanized industry to a new medium and expanded it, innovating such archetypes of science fiction filmmaking as the anthropoid robot or android. Things to Come (1936) continued the innovation, visualizing such ideas as colossal projections used to speak to large public audiences. Both films were direct commentaries on the filmmakers’ fears for the immediate future of humanity.){kind=link}
The Quartermass Experiment (1953)
Although TV had been broadcasting nickelodeon-style serials like Flash Gordon and Captain Video nearly since the medium’s inception, The Quartermass Experiment was the first major serious science fiction show. Much as John Campbell raised the bar for pulp sci-fi, Quatermass paved the way for television programs that went beyond adventure to accomplish the core mission of science fiction: to comment on contemporary society by extrapolating its future or diverting its past. The following decade brought two series that transformed the way science fiction was evoked on television: Doctor Who (1963-1989 and 2005-present) in the United Kingdom and Star Trek (1966-69) in the U.S.){kind=link}
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
Stanley Kubrick's science-fiction masterpiece 2001: A Space Odyssey built on the magnificent art direction explored by George Pal in the preceding decade to evoke a startling new sense of verisimilitude throughout the story, in past, present, and future. This realism is bound inextricably to the ominous enigma of the black monoliths and the ineffable aliens behind them, demonstrating as few others have done science fiction’s marriage of the possible and the unknowable – the capacity of humanity meeting the limitations of its ability to understand, and the dangers implied by man’s ignorance.){kind=link}
Star Wars (1977)
It's easy to say that the massive success of Star Wars was pivotal in the history of science fiction – but why did it happen? Lucas took a simple, blood-pumping adventure story harking back to old movie serials, pulp space opera, and Heinlein juveniles – and the realized it on a scale that was both epic and unpretentious. The fresh-faced youth discovering his powers was someone every boy wanted to identify with. Darth Vader was deliciously dark, but enticingly enigmatic. The art direction and effects were close enough to perfect that we felt like we really were out there. The film’s climax is just a battle in a larger war, underlining the vast scale of a galactic empire. How could our heroes ever shut it down? We’d be there to find out.More »
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