Like her titular protagonist, when Mary Shelley published Frankenstein in 1818, she knew not what she had wrought into the world. Her tale of science taken too far birthed what many consider the first science fiction novel… and what some don’t. As it turns out, there are several tales told before the 19th century that could also be considered sci-fi stories about aliens, spaceships, time travel, and more. Here’s a (non-exhaustive) list of proto-science fiction written when science itself was practically fiction.
Books & Comics
12 Sci-Fi Stories Written Before Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein
The Modern Prometheus is a bit too modern to have solely created science fiction, although it did revolutionize it.
By
Rob Bricken
Reading time 1 minute
