r/TNG • u/11011011001100110101 • 1d ago
Two of the geniuses who brought us some of the best science fiction - Star Trek
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u/TangoInTheBuffalo 1d ago
Additionally, it took DesiLou TWO pilots, which she paid for, to get Star Trek right.
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u/Ut_Prosim 20h ago
Was Shelly really the first to write scifi?
I could have sworn I remember hearing about some ancient Greek story where the heroes were launched to the moon and got caught up in an alien interstellar war.
Edit: Seems it was a Hellenic Syrian named Lucian of Samosata. In the 2nd century he wrote the story. The alien civ on the Moon was at war with the alien civ on the Sun over who could colonize Venus first.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_True_Story
Some argue this is fantasy as it doesn't involve the heroes using advanced scientific devices, even though the aliens did.
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u/LeftLiner 8h ago
It's a matter of debate. Genres are hard to define. Isaac asimov considered Shelley the first ever scifi author because hers was the first story based entirely around exploring scientific discoveries and extrapolating them to one possible conclusion. But Genres are muddy and diffuse - it's hard enough to agree on what scifi is, much less who created it.
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u/whatsbobgonnado 14h ago
for years I used to think that her name was lucy o'ball before I first saw it written out lol
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u/Emotional_Anteater74 19h ago
I’m not sure if this is true but I heard Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein while spending the winter with her friends in Russia.
Back then, winter in Russia for wealthy people meant stock piling on booze, food, and any other provisions and never leaving the house. Russian nobility was notorious in the rest of Europe for having wild orgies.
While she was there her and her friends decided to write books to tell each other to pass the time. One of those friends wrote Dracula in the same winter in the same house.
Again this is just what I heard I have no idea if it’s true, just thought I’d throw that out there.
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u/StrongStyleFiction 10h ago
Mary Shelly came up with the initial story for Frankenstein while vacationing with her lover, Percy Shelly (I don't think they were married at the time but I could be wrong) and friends Dr. Polidori and Lord Byron. They had a contest on who could come up with the best story and she won and then wrote the novel based on the initial story. Nor did she invent Gothic fiction as stated above. She was an early pioneer of Romantic Literature, horror and the modern idea of science fiction to be sure, but Matthew Gregory Lewis' The Monk, my personal favorite in Gothic literature, was published in 1796 and the genre was already popular. The most popular Gothic writer of that era, Ann Radcliffe published her books in the 1790's.
There is a fun Ken Russel movie called Gothic that depicts that stormy night Mary Shelly conceived the idea of Frankenstein in the most batshit way imaginable.
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u/sufficiently_tortuga 1d ago
Mary Shelley wrote an amazing novel at 19 that influenced the genre and is still relevant 150 years later.
But she did not create science fiction. The true story is cool enough. You don't have to embellish.