Origin of Science Fiction

In the XIXth century, the progress of science inspired a lot of new fiction authors. Rather than to tell about old gods and magic, they wrote about stories taking place in a future relying on science instead of magic to imagine fantastic adventures made possible by the technological advances, and that is the birth of Science-Fiction.

The most famous of its early writers are Jules Verne, whose novels take place deep under the sea, in the center of the earth or on the surface of the moon, as well as in forgotten places once inaccessible to mankind but made possible thanks to new means of transportation and communication; and also H. G. Wells, imagining time travel, dystopian futures or an alien invasion of the earth.

The following century brought a new generation of authors, such as John W. Campbell and Isaac Azimov, an engineer and a biochemist respectively, who published successful novels that built the foundations of the genre: their scientific background made their imagined worlds really coherent, without details left to chance or lazily justified by: “it’s because of science”. Using main social sciences disciplines such as sociology, history or psychology, these stories make you evolve in a realistic adventure, allowing you to dream about how science could make you reach bright futures… Or to have nightmares about how it could corrupt humanity and lead to its destruction. Those are the definitions of utopias and dystopias, closely linked to SF, as Philip K. Dick will later show in The Man in the High Castle, imagining the sixties in a world dominated by the Japanese Empire and the German Reich after their victory in WWII. The two most famous dystopias, Brave New World from Aldous Huxley, and 1984 from George Orwell, are both using Science-Fiction to describe a frightening future where most of humans are enslaved by a totalitarian regime constantly crushing every hope for change inside people’s mind.

This is the real paradox of the genre: “Science-Fiction is torn between the desire for progress and the denunciation of its possible perversions”, summarizes Gérard Klein, french SF author. Over time, Science-Fiction will become a new major genre in pop culture literature, also influenced by the counter-culture that emerged in the sixties, with many variations. Here are some of these sub-genres that have enriched Science-Fiction up until today, and some great works from each of them to allow you to discover them and dive in deeper into this genre.

Space Opera

Space Opera is the most iconic genre of Science-Fiction. It takes place in universes where men have managed to tame the space environment thanks to huge spaceships and Faster-Than-Light travel. If the early works weren’t very strict about the science (Star Wars TIE fighters can’t make any sound in space), it became more and more accurate over time, questioning ourselves about our relation with aliens or new planetary environments.

For example, Dune by Franck Herbert explores the colonization of a desert planet populated by giant sand worms and native people, the Freemen. Dune control is really important for the Old Empire as it produces spice, the main fuel for space travel. This fantastic adventure reminds us of the costs of technical progress, based on the continuous extraction of new resources.

Cyberpunk

The eighties saw a new generation of authors and creators renewing the genre in accordance with the expectations of their time, such as William Gibson, whose novel The Neuromancer is considered to be the founding book of Cyberpunk, a genre mixing the cyber technologies with the punk dissenting spirit of the eighties. Thus, the typical cyberpunk universe takes place in a bright city with huge buildings, flying cars, chips that are enhancing human abilities and robots. But these cities are mostly ruled by tyrannical mega corporations, facing gang violence and new cyber-drugs outbreak.

Exploring various kinds of science-fiction genre, the animated TV show Love, Death and Robots of which some episodes are considered to be cyberpunk. Zima Blue is telling the story of an artist whose paintings become more and more ambitious, hiding a secret behind his works; When the Yogurt Took Over is about the conquest of our world by a clever yogurt; Pop Squad takes place in a dystopian future where reproduction is forbidden to avoid overpopulation, and where immortality is granted to a rich elite… This amazing TV show is a real must-see for everyone that want to discover this sub-genre, and sci-fi in general.

Steampunk

Derived from Cyberpunk, Steampunk can be considered as “retro-futurism” where the authors imagine another timeline starting from the industrial revolution. There, the steam-powered engines opened new possibilities for mankind. Airships, gunboats but also steam-powered robots or cyborgs abound in Steampunk worlds, first inspired by modern adaptations of Jules Verne’s works on the big screen.

Japanese animation explored a lot of Science-Fiction sub-genres, and steampunk is no exception to this rule. Steamboy by Katsuhiro Otomo and Laputa: Castle in the Sky by Hayao Miyazaki are both describing alternative universes where steam engines led humanity to the skies, but some military agendas are advocating for another darker use of these technologies…

Post-Apocalyptic

No need for a thesis to describe this sub-genre: the Cold War marked several generations and nurtured the fear of humanity destroying itself. Post-Apocalyptic fictions take place in a world destroyed by radiations, looters and mutants, telling about the hard competition among the few survivors of the apocalypse. But this is also about the reconstruction of human communities after the disaster, and the choices they are faced with, learning from the past mistakes that led humanity to its ruin… or trying to rule over again.

I must confess though my unconditional love for post-apocalyptic universes, started with the Fallout video game series. This universe takes place in the XXIIIth century where humans are slowly going out of massive vaults that kept them safe from the atomic war of 2077. “Because war, war never changes”, as stated at the beginning of the game like a dark prophecy for humanity, the player evolves in a rough world poisoned by radiations, discovering new animals, mutants, cities and nations fighting for the rare resources left untouched by the nuclear winter.

Youen Le Bris

Sources :
Baudou, Jacques. La science-fiction. Presses Universitaires de France, 2003.
Bozzetto, Roger. La science-fiction. Armand Colin, 2007
“Science Fiction in the Eighties”, Gardner Dozois, The Washington Post, 30/12/1984.
“Qui a tué le cyberpunk?” by Bolchegeek, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BcnhVVQhxA

Works :
Katsuhiro Otomo, Steamboy, 2004
Hayao Miyazaki, Laputa, Castle in the Skies, 1986
Franck Herbert, Dune, 1965
Tim Miller, Love, Death and Robots, Netflix, 2019-?
Tim Cain, Fallout, 1997-?