The more I think about it, there's something we should have done sooner
Maybe even started the series with it
an overview of the history of sci-fi
Because to get really excited about exploring the depth
and the ideas behind our science fiction
to really analyze these works deeply
we first have to see the amazing way they all connect
how this new branch of literature came together over the last 200 plus years,
so let's begin that endeavor today
For the next who knows how many weeks
I want to take a broad messy look at the entire history of science fiction
from its origin to its modern day
a crash course if you will
Because to really get the most out of the deep dive episodes
We've been doing and eventually
Plan to get back to -
I think it'll be helpful to start with an overview
a lay of the land
and the cool thing is that science fiction is at the perfect place for this
the forum is just old enough that we can look back and see what mattered what?
Had a lasting influence,
but also young enough that this bird's eye view won't take us years to get through now
Now we're not gonna go strictly by chronological order with this
because I think it'll be more helpful to focus on the larger movements
or eras of sci-fi
Many of which overlap
or are smeared out along great swathes of time
And we are inevitably going to miss some things and
gloss over others simply for the sake of time, but don't worry
We'll be coming back to everything when this mighty overview is done
So let's get extra sci-fi started
again
without further ado
imagine a world
where machines can transmit information across long distances
Where carriages are pulled not by horses,
but by engines relying on combustion?
Imagine a world where electrically powered ships
can sail below the surface of the sea
and heavier-than-air vessels sail the skies
Jules Verne imagined all these things
that was his incredible strength
where Mary Shelley and to an even greater degree
H.G. Wells used science fiction to project out and see the moral ramifications of our technology
Jules Verne
extrapolated the possible future
applications of the science of the day
and guessed at the marvels people might produce from the things we were so
Rapidly learning about the world
Shelley to me is the true progenitor of science fiction?
But Jules Verne's way of viewing the world allowed him to erect one of the great
pillars of sci-fi
Upon which so much other science fiction will be built
in the episodes on
Frankenstein we talked about how Shelley brought to us a genre distinct from myth or fantasy
by creating a place where the
fantastic can still happen,
but within the realm of the possible
today in discussing Jules Verne
We are gonna talk about the originator of hard sci-fi
the man who took this idea of the possible
and said
what if I run with that
what if I make it not only the possible but
something nearer the probable
Verne was meticulous in his research
learning from scientists and studying the scientific reporting of the time
his books were filled with
Technical details that make him somewhat laborious to read today,
but the audience of his time ate it up
He was the first truly successful science fiction writer
Shelley and Poe and a handful of others had dabbled in science fiction
But they weren't really science fiction writers
though some may try to deny it
all of Jules Verne's most
Successful work was science fiction
in his first truly smash hit Journey to the Center of the Earth
Verne takes us on a grand adventure through volcanoes into a Hollow Earth
filled with dinosaurs
and flashing underground seas
But even though the science here is mostly wrong
He launches into it with one of his great loves
and one of his great contributions to science fiction
puzzles
at the outset the main character finds an Icelandic manuscript
And in it is a set of ancient mysterious runes
in a manic sequence filled with philological
Explanations the characters translate the runes to the English alphabet
only to find that they are also in ciphered
locked in a room
Refusing food or water until the decipherment is done
the protagonists work to crack the code
one character figures out
They're looking at a transposition cipher, but still can't make sense of it,
then another character
nearly faint from hunger
Realizes it's backwards
and in Latin
Eureka the
Location of the passage to the center of the earth is revealed now
That is a sci-fi puzzle
this tradition of puzzles
puzzles of intellect
Knowledge or technology would become rife
throughout not only Verne's own work
But through him science fiction at large
Verne followed Journey to the Center of the Earth with
from the earth to the moon
Because the guy just loved to write about journeys
It was pretty much his jam and if you think about science fiction and fantasy
from Nova to Lord of the Rings
It's something that so many people picked up on
but this story
Which is probably known best to us today from the 1902 silent film A Trip to the Moon
was a shockingly?
realistic depiction of space travel for a time when nobody was even really thinking about
rocketry
it considered everything from how a human being might survive the
acceleration necessary to escape the Earth's atmosphere
To how Lagrange points work and
as Neil Armstrong himself pointed out
Verne even figured out that the best place to launch a trip to the moon would be from the
coast of Florida
And if you want a really wild coincidence
Verne named his space gun the Columbia
Decades later and with no intent of making reference to Verne's work
NASA would name their own
Space shuttle which served basically the same purpose
the Columbia
Verne also gave us
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
which while primarily remembered for its
Single-minded Captain Nemo and its early description of an electric submarine.
It's actually the most radical of the work. He published during his lifetime
20,000 Leagues offers a bold critique of the society that Verne himself was living in criticizing
imperialism and European social structure and
giving us that famous sci-fi trope
of the bold adventurer who retreats to the unknown
rather than deal with the politics of society and
like Frankenstein
20,000 Leagues makes reference to the classics
Which inspired it
namely the Odyssey
Captain Nemo is even the name Odysseus uses with the Cyclops
helping to cement the link between
science fiction and the classics
Then there is of course
around the world in 80 days
Not so science fictiony but it did inspire much of modern steampunk
and gave us an excellent mobile game
but the reason it's important
is that it really ushered in the idea that the world was shrinking
that modern transportation and
communication allowed different human societies to be explored and intermingle in ways largely absent in the literature before
This would become an essential idea to so much of later sci-fi.
Oh, and there is one other Verne book
I should mention
Paris in the 20th century
Vern's publisher refused to release it during his lifetime
deeming it
Too radical
in fact the book wasn't published until it was rediscovered in 1994
a hundred and thirty one years after Verne wrote it
if you're a Verne fan that one's worth checking out
because it shows us the writer Jules Verne could have been
it's one of the first novels he ever actually wrote
and it's a grim dystopia that warns of some of the social horrors that the
Technological marvels he predicted might bring
it's one of his most lyrical works, and it's one of in my opinion his most thoughtful
plus It's always fun to imagine
What would have happened if he'd been allowed to publish this
would Verne have combined hard sci-fi with
top-tier social critique and created an entirely different direction for the genre
We'll never know
But join us next time as we talk about the author who really did bring social critique to science fiction
on a mass scale
H.G. Wells