It was a dark and stormy night when Mary Shelley sat down and thought to herself, “Yo Mary - I'm gonna write a book about a dude who builds another dude, and in doing so invent a genre that will change the lives of many, many, many people for hundreds of years to come.” Actually, she didn't, but that's how I like to imagine it happened. I also like to imagine that she was wearing a Snoopy tee-shirt and eating Ben & Jerry’s directly out of the tub, which is why my unofficial biography of her was never authorized for release by any major publishing house.
Ben and Jerry's you say?
It is hard to pinpoint the exact moment that the Science Fiction genre was born, though. As human beings we like things to run on a linear path with a clear beginning, which is why so many cultures - religious or not - have theories about the universe’s creation. It can’t have always been here, it must have come from somewhere. But the problem in literature is that you can’t really pin down when anything truly began. Movies? Easy-peasy, they’ve only existed since the 1890’s. TV shows? The 1930’s. (Ish.) Comics? Well, er, that’s...also sort-of tricky. Satirical cartoons existing long before Batman, after all.
But mankind has been telling stories ever since we thought living in caves was just a swell idea, and hundreds of thousands of those stories have been lost to the wilderness, either because the oral tradition simply stopped somewhere or because the scrolls they were written on were destroyed at some point. Heck, for all we know there were tales of robots and spaceships and zap zap guns in the Great Library of Alexandria, and it was aliens who destroyed it to stop mankind from advancing too fast. (Wait, I just thought of the plot of Mass Effect 4.) So to point to one person and say, “yep, this is the dame who invented a genre” is somewhat impossible, but everything has to start somewhere.
But mankind has been telling stories ever since we thought living in caves was just a swell idea, and hundreds of thousands of those stories have been lost to the wilderness, either because the oral tradition simply stopped somewhere or because the scrolls they were written on were destroyed at some point. Heck, for all we know there were tales of robots and spaceships and zap zap guns in the Great Library of Alexandria, and it was aliens who destroyed it to stop mankind from advancing too fast. (Wait, I just thought of the plot of Mass Effect 4.) So to point to one person and say, “yep, this is the dame who invented a genre” is somewhat impossible, but everything has to start somewhere.
DINOSSAAAAAAUUUURRRRSSSS!!!
So what’s all this umming and ahhing for? Well, Adam has asked me to write a series on the History of British Sci-Fi, and like all the insecure humans I’ve just twittered about above I needed a starting point. Many literary historians point to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein as being the first Science Fiction novel, and so I’ve picked the early 1800’s as a good year to start our journey. I’m going to be looking at books, films, TV shows, comics, music videos...all sorts of media. Hopefully we can build up a map of what makes British Sci-Fi unique - and if not, heck, I get to write about one of my most favorite subjects. It’s a win/win situation!
And remember, dear reader: Frankenstein is the name of the monster. Just because he didn’t have any bolts through his neck, it doesn’t mean that Victor was the good guy.
And remember, dear reader: Frankenstein is the name of the monster. Just because he didn’t have any bolts through his neck, it doesn’t mean that Victor was the good guy.
 | Becca (Professer Lampenstien) Allen is a longtime youtuber and once co-hosted Back To The Eighties before creating looped smelting pool experience for her fellow podcasters. She has never been brought to justice for crimes against science. |
