A Brief History Of The Science-Fiction Genre

When people think of science-fiction (Often shortened to sci-fi), they tend to think of space, robots, aliens, and things far beyond our reach with current technology. Though this is not always the case. Science-Fiction is often associated with Fantasy as they are very similar genres, but where Fantasy includes things such as magic, mythical beasts and other such seemingly impossible things, science-fiction more focuses on things that are speculated to be possible with future technology. And although science-fiction has flourished within the last century, becoming increasingly popular within movies, novels, and games, the science-fiction genre has been around for a very long time. Mythology and some religions have roots in science-fiction, but some of the earliest recorded stories of science fiction are from as early as the 2nd century (Though this is now called Proto sci-fi, prototype science-fiction, basically the predecessor to modern sci-fi). Popular proto sci-fi includes Lucian of Samosata’s ‘True History’ from the 2nd

century, ‘The Tale Of The Bamboo Cutter’, a Japanese folktale from the 10 th

century. And Ibn al-Nafis’ ‘Theological Autodidactus’, from the 13th century. Although some of these stories may not be considered sci-fi to us these days, sci-fi is not necessarily about aliens and space and such. To qualify as sci-fi, a story needs to include feats which are not currently possible with modern technology, but are not too extremely farfetched as to be dismissed as impossible some day in the future. Mary Shelly’s ‘Frankenstein’ from the 1800’s is a sci-fi novel. Animating a corpse was not possible, neither is it still, with technology. Though it is not regarded as farfetched and completely possible, as it is considered that this may be possible one day with advanced technology. Throughout history, science-fiction has always been popular. Envisions of the future and what science may one day be capable of has always fascinated people. Onto more modern science-fiction, sci-fi has become increasingly popular in many different aspects of media within the last century. It has spawned an insurmountable amount of novels, movies, games, sub-genres (Such as Cyberpunk, military SF, superhuman, apocalyptic, pulp science-fiction, and space opera), and many other things. Herbert George Wells’ ‘The War Of The Worlds’ is considered the Godfather of modern science-fiction along with a couple other science fictions. What makes this modern science fiction is its roots in alien life, advanced technology, and space travel, much of which modern science-fiction is centered around. In the 1980’s, sci-fi experienced a popularity boom, giving birth to popular novels and movies (Many of which are still extremely popular today) such as Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep, Star Wars, Star Trek, Blade Runner, and Total Recall. The science-fiction genre is still going extremely strong today, with modern blockbusters such as Avatar, Halo, Riddick, and many more. The science-fiction genre will not be dying out any time soon and will most likely continue to keep growing, gathering followers and making more and more extremely impressive movies, novels, and games.