Most influencial / important Sci Fi works...

[Who's Wee Dug]

And there is the Author who influenced Tolkien, George McDonald

[j. d. worthington]

On this one, I'll be a bit pedantic: Tolkien remarked on more than one occasion that he detested MacDonald because his work was consciously allegorical; he was much fonder of William Morris, E. R. Eddison and even, to some degree, Robert E. Howard. Nonetheless, I definitely second Wee Dug's recommendation, not only as a general influence, but also because he wrote some marvelous books. Lilith is something no lover of imaginary worlds should miss, and it is by no means the only such among his writings....

[davlaurjen]

Jules Verne,HG Wells,George Orwell

[Valko]

Arthur C Clarke 2001: A Space Odyssey

[Valko]

Sorry finger slipped on the keys

[phase38]

Originally Posted by Valko

Sorry finger slipped on the keys

Ah... the book or the film?

[Pyar]

I don't think Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein with the intent of it being a science fiction novel. From what I understand, she was on vacation with some of her friends and they all decided to see who could write the scariest horror novel. She had a dream about a gigantic monster which inspired the novel. The book was more of a Gothic novel with romance elements. The science part of the book, in my opinion, was just used by Mary Shelley as a means to represent a her own pain and suffering. While some critics are quick to label it as a science fiction novel, anyone who has read in depth in this genre would imediately notice that Frakenstein doesn't fit into the typical archetype.

[j. d. worthington]

Pyar -- no, she didn't write it as a science fiction novel, because the field of science fiction didn't exist at that point. In fact, there was no such label until the late 1890s, when it was "scientific romance", then the 1920s, with Gernsback's "scientifiction", and then the 1930s it became the more familiar "science fiction". But when people like Brian Aldiss see it in hindsight as the first true science fiction novel, they mean (and quite accurately) that it was the first novel that was truly that bifurcation between using the supernatural as the motivation for the happenings, and using science and its results (good or bad) as the explanation. That's a very important difference, and whether she intended it or not, it was the birth of what would later become science fiction rather than fantasy, horror, or even the more vague "speculative fiction".

And yes, she and Shelley were visiting Byron at the Villa Diodati, where they took turns reading a set of stories from a book called Fantasmagoriana (if I remember the title correctly), and then a competition was set in place to see who could write the best ghost story. Shelley did not produce any prose works from that (though he had earlier written two short Gothic novels, St. Irvyne and Zastrozzi), Byron began but did not complete a novel, and John Polidori rather stole Byron's idea and wrote a piece called "The Vampyre", basing the titular character quite obviously on Byron, with whom he'd had a falling-out -- and then published it in such a way that it was accredited to Byron (who was not amused). Mary's tale was the only one to reach full development, and it took well over a year. However, it went from being a "ghost story" to being a very complex novel using much of her scientific and philosophical reading of the time (for anyone that interested, there is an account of her and Shelley's reading matter that can be consulted; it may have actually been published by an academic press) -- something she continued to do with The Last Man, which relies heavily on Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France. (Both The Last Man and Frankenstein, as well as the earlier novels of Ann Radcliffe, were heavily influenced by his essay A Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful.) In this way, too, she began the trend that created what we know as science fiction, as her novel used the fantastic and horrific to examine social and political issues of the time, and extrapolate upon them; which has long been one of the main uses of sf, as it is one of the few fields that was not censored to prevent such, being dismissed as "fairy tale" sort of stories during the 1940s and 1950s for example, during the Second World War and the McCarthy era, thus allowing writers to write cautionary tales about where we were headed as a society at a time when criticism of certain public figures could well end one's career.

So, while it cannot be said that it was written as such, it nonetheless can be pointed to as the very first true sf novel, as it was the branching off point where we broke with the medieval tradition of magic being the motivating force, and began to use science and its effects in its place.

[Valko]

Thanks for clearing that up JD. I was always under the assumption that she became fixated with death and re-animation after her husband died.

Another urban myth laid to rest

[j. d. worthington]

Originally Posted by Valko

Thanks for clearing that up JD. I was always under the assumption that she became fixated with death and re-animation after her husband died.

Another urban myth laid to rest

No, though the death of Victor's younger brother at the creature's hands is a reflection of the loss of their son.... In fact, only one of the children she and Shelley had survived childhood. Her life makes fascinating, if painful, reading, as in a very few years she lost nearly everyone dear to her.