From Nowhere: Utopian and Dystopian Visions of our - Chris J. Young

Case Eight: Beyond our World
Face this world. Learn its ways, watch it, be careful of too hasty
guesses at its meaning. In the end you will find clues to it all.
H.G. Wells, The Time Machine
The genre of science fiction challenges the boundaries of our imaginations and pushes us into new realms of
ideas that have not yet been conceived. Many of the movements within technology, medicine, philosophy,
and ethics would not have been possible without the imaginations of creative writers who provided
answers to the burning questions on which we had only just begun to speculate. What would happen if
we could travel to the future? What would happen if aliens invaded? Can we create new species or artificial
intelligence? When these questions were posed, they were as implausible as were the answers provided. For
almost two hundred years writers have taken us to distant planets, unimaginable futures, and pushed nature
to the limits. in doing so, they have made us believe that a future, utopian society is possible. However,
alongside these journeys were dystopic visions with colossal consequences for the future of humanity and
society. As we journey to these visions beyond our world, we should do so cautiously. As the Time Traveller
once said, muttering to himself in H. G. Well’s The Time Machine, ‘Face this world. Learn its ways, watch it,
be careful of too hasty guesses at its meaning. in the end you will find clues to it all.’
47. Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (1797–1851). Frankenstein, or, The modern
Prometheus. London: H. Colburn and R. Bentley, 1831.
Mary Shelley’s first novel Frankenstein, which was written when the author was eighteen, is often
regarded as the first science fiction novel. While staying at Villa Diodati on Lake Geneva in the summer
of 1816, Lord Byron challenged Shelley to write a ghost story. Little did Shelley know that her story
would become one of the most significant narratives in literature and film. The story revolves around the
tension between the protagonist, scientist Victor Frankenstein, and the antihero, the unnamed Creature,
who was created by him. The novel deals with questions of alienation and human nature, wherein the
Creature struggles with its creator and society to find a place in the world, with perilous consequences
for the characters involved. The first popular edition of Frankenstein was the third, published in 1831
by Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley, as one of a series of monthly single-volume reprints. What
distinguishes this edition from the previous two, published in 1818 and 1823 respectively, was that
it was the first to feature an illustration of Frankenstein and the Creature, displaying the grotesque,
inhuman-looking Creature sprawled over the floor next to his terrified creator.
From Nowhere: Utopian and Dystopian Visions of our Past, Present, and Future 63