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Genre Fiction Lineage · Section

Science Fiction

Science fiction subgenres traced through dated first printings, showing where each one first appeared in print and which links to later books rest on evidence.

4 entries, newest first

Illustration: a time machine of metal, ivory and crystal rods standing in an empty 1890s workshop at night

Lineage essay

The Time Machine: Gaspar's Time Ship Was in Print by 1887

Enrique Gaspar's El anacronópete put a time machine in print in Barcelona in 1887, eight years before Wells. Ten time-travel stories to 1895, dated, with a CSV.

Start here: the section’s flagship entry

Picture credit

Illustration: Genre Fiction Lineage. Generated scene illustration — not a book illustration, photograph or historical record. No copyright is claimed in the generated imagery; if you reuse it, please credit "Genre Fiction Lineage".

1831 frontispiece engraving: the creature half-rises on the floor of a room with a tall arched window while Victor flees

Edition comparison

Frankenstein: In the 1818 Text, Elizabeth Is Victor's Cousin

In the 1818 Frankenstein, Elizabeth is Victor's first cousin; in the 1831 text she is a Milanese nobleman's daughter. Thirteen passages compared side by side.

Picture credit

"Frankenstein observing the first stirrings of his creature" by Wellcome Collection, 1831 — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Frankenstein_observing_the_first_stirrings_of_his_creature._Wellcome_L0027125.jpg — CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

Martian machines with dish-shaped bodies and girder legs heaped on a slope, Warwick Goble's plate in the 1898 Harper edition

Data page

Science Fiction Subgenres: Most of 12 Names Came After Books

Twelve science fiction names, from utopia to steampunk, each dated against an early work of its kind. Most of the names reached print years later.

Picture credit

"The War of the Worlds, page 279" by Warwick Goble, 1898 — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:War_of_the_Worlds_pg_279.png — Public domain (US: published 1898 (Harper); Germany and France: Goble died 1943 (dates on the Commons file page of the whole 1898 book), so 70 years after death ran out at the end of 2013 (Germany: UrhG §64; France: CPI L123-1, general rule, not checked against Légifrance); a British illustrator, so the French 'mort pour la France' extension is not considered (general knowledge, not checked); Wells (died 1946) is the author of the text, not the image)

Illustration: a finned rocket in black silhouette crosses in front of a green ringed planet against a dark starry sky

Catalogue entry

Space Opera: Earliest Known Printed English Use, 1941

The earliest known use of “space opera” is in a January 1941 fan magazine, per the Historical Dictionary of Science Fiction. The stories it names came first.

Picture credit

Illustration: Genre Fiction Lineage. Generated scene illustration — not a book illustration, photograph or historical record. No copyright is claimed in the generated imagery; if you reuse it, please credit "Genre Fiction Lineage".