The question hit me while I was reorganising my collection of battered paperbacks last month. You know that moment when you're sorting through decades of accumulated sci-fi novels, and suddenly you wonder: where did it all begin? I mean, really begin. Not just the golden age stuff from the 1950s that everyone talks about, but the very first book that made someone think "what if technology could do this impossible thing?"
Turns out, pinning down the "first" science fiction novel is like trying to grab mercury with tweezers. Every scholar seems to have a different answer, and they're all sort of right.
Most people will tell you it's Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein" from 1818. Fair enough — it's got scientific experimentation, artificial life, and explores what happens when humans play God. I remember picking up a copy at fifteen and being genuinely unsettled by how modern it felt. The moral questions Victor Frankenstein grapples with aren't that different from what we're asking about AI development today. But here's the thing: Shelley wasn't really writing about future technology. She was using the cutting-edge science of her time (galvanism, anatomy) and pushing it just one step further.
Some scholars argue for earlier works. There's Johannes Kepler's "Somnium" from 1634, which describes a trip to the moon. Fascinating stuff, especially since Kepler was an actual astronomer who tried to work out the physics of space travel. But it reads more like a scientific thought experiment wrapped in fantasy than what we'd recognise as sci-fi today.
Then you've got Voltaire's "Micromégas" from 1752 — a story about aliens visiting Earth. The twist? These aliens are giants from other planets, and they view humans the way we might view ants. It's brilliant social commentary disguised as space adventure. But again, it's using the alien encounter as a literary device rather than seriously exploring technological possibilities.
What makes "Frankenstein" different isn't just that it came earlier than most (though not all) — it's how it set up the template that science fiction still follows today. Shelley created what I think of as the "sci-fi anxiety structure": scientists discover or create something amazing, then spend the rest of the story dealing with the horrifying consequences of their success.
Sound familiar? It should. That's the backbone of everything from "Jurassic Park" to "Ex Machina." Even "The Matrix" follows this pattern if you squint at it right.
I spent a weekend last year actually reading through "Frankenstein" with a notebook, jotting down every element that shows up in modern sci-fi. The list got pretty long. There's the obsessive scientist character who can't leave well enough alone. There's the created being who's more human than its creator in some ways. There's the exploration of what makes someone "alive" or "real." There's the question of responsibility — if you create something, are you responsible for what it does?
But perhaps most importantly, there's the way Shelley grounds her fantastic premise in scientific plausibility. She doesn't just wave her hands and say "magic happens." Victor studies anatomy, chemistry, physiology. He works in laboratories, not wizard towers. The novel takes pains to suggest that everything Victor does could theoretically be done, if you just knew enough about how bodies work.
This is what separates science fiction from fantasy, even today. Fantasy asks "what if magic were real?" Science fiction asks "what if this scientific principle could be extended further than we currently think possible?"
The influence of this approach can't be overstated. Jules Verne read "Frankenstein" as a young man, and you can see its fingerprints all over his work. Verne's submarines and flying machines weren't magical — they were engineering problems with imaginative solutions. H.G. Wells took the same approach with time travel and invisibility. Even when the science gets wobbly (and it often does), the attempt to ground extraordinary events in scientific reasoning gives the stories weight.
I think this is why "Frankenstein" has stayed relevant in ways that earlier proto-sci-fi hasn't. Kepler's moon voyage is historically interesting, but it doesn't speak to current anxieties about genetic engineering or artificial intelligence. Shelley's exploration of creation, consciousness, and responsibility? That stuff keeps us up at night in 2024.
The book also established sci-fi's relationship with horror. Victor's creation isn't just amazing — it's terrifying. This duality runs through the entire genre. We're fascinated by technological advancement, but we're also scared of it. We want to see what's possible, but we're worried about the cost.
Every time I watch a new sci-fi film or read about the latest AI breakthrough, I think about Mary Shelley sitting in that villa by Lake Geneva in 1816, trying to write the scariest story she could imagine. She was nineteen years old. Nineteen! And she accidentally invented a literary genre that's still helping us process our relationship with technology two centuries later.
The ghost story competition that sparked "Frankenstein" was supposed to be a bit of fun between friends. Byron suggested they each write something supernatural to pass the time during a gloomy summer. Shelley's contribution ended up reshaping how we think about scientific progress, moral responsibility, and what it means to be human.
Not bad for a teenage girl's attempt at writing something spooky.
When I look at my shelves now — all those paperbacks I've collected over the years — I can trace a direct line from that first edition of "Frankenstein" to the latest novel about uploaded consciousness or bioengineered plagues. The technology changes, but the questions remain the same. What are we willing to sacrifice for knowledge? What do we owe our creations? What does it cost to play God?
Mary Shelley didn't just write the first science fiction novel. She wrote the first draft of every conversation we're still having about technology and its consequences. That's not just influence — that's prophecy.
