One of the earliest science fiction books was written by a 1660s duchess (2016) | Hacker News Reader

One of the earliest science fiction books was written by a 1660s duchess (2016)

atlasobscura.com

108 pointsHooke22 comments

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_True_Story

> A True Story is a novel written in the second century AD by Lucian of Samosata. [...] It is the earliest known work of fiction to include travel to outer space, alien lifeforms, and interplanetary warfare. As such, A True Story has been described as "the first known text that could be called science fiction".

This is a nice overview of early science fiction: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_science_fiction

The plot of A True Story sounds like a Nerd poker campaign

Margaret Cavendish's book, The Description of a New World, Called the Blazing-World, is available from Project Gutenberg at [0].

[0] http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/51783

Yet another reference from The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (first referenced in Black Dossier) that passed me by. Alan Moore certainly knows how to dig deep into literature.

Wow, she just described a jet engine, nearly 400 years before it invented in the late 1930s.

She kind of described what people do when they blow on something to make it move. Big breath in though a wide open mouth followed by a directed blow out through pursed lips.

More accurately, the turbo-jet engine was invented in the 1930's (independently by Ohain and Whittle). The turbo-jet has a compressor stage driven by a turbine in the exhaust stream.

Prior jet engines were rocket engines, which go back to the ancient Chinese.

A ram-jet eliminates the turbine entirely, relying on aerodynamic forces to provide the compression. Of course, the engine needs to be moving very fast for this to work.

Fun fact: Caltech's Jet Propulsion Laboratory was named "jet" instead of "rocket" out of concern that the neighbors would be afraid of rockets. Of course, rocket engines were what they were developing, not turbo-jets.

"She becomes their Empress, and with her otherworldly subjects, she explores natural wonders and questions their observations using science."

Not only early SF but also an early Mary Sue?

For the uninitiated to fanfiction terminology Mary Sue refers to a character who is so perfect and competent that it becomes absurd. I believe the name was given to a parody fiction written for the Trekkie universe -- ah and wikipedia confirms (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Sue)

Also this gem, an excerpt from the fanfiction: "Gee, golly, gosh, gloriosky," thought Mary Sue as she stepped on the bridge of the Enterprise. "Here I am, the youngest lieutenant in the fleet - only fifteen and a half years old." Captain Kirk came up to her.

"Oh, Lieutenant, I love you madly. Will you come to bed with me?" "Captain! I am not that kind of girl!" "You're right, and I respect you for it. Here, take over the ship for a minute while I go get some coffee for us." Mr. Spock came onto the bridge. "What are you doing in the command seat, Lieutenant?" "The Captain told me to." "Flawlessly logical. I admire your mind."

I was very interested when I learned my high school English teacher was writing a novel and I expressed my admiration. “Oh, everyone’s writing a novel,“ he replied. I asked him how it was going and he said he’d had this character who was just too good and was taking over the book. “So,” he said, “I killed him.”

I'd assume Mary Sue characters existed from the dawn of human existence. We just don't remember them because it's relatively bad storytelling. Even if people enjoy it, stories with Mary Sue characters rarely stand the test of time. Ready player one, Twilight, etc etc.

Early epics are noted for their flawed characters. Gilgamesh's bloodlust, Odysseus's disdain of the gods. Iccarus's hubris. King Authurs infidelity.

We better remember characters who were flawed. 'Perfection' is strangely boring.

Odysseus did not had disdain for God's. But he lied a lot through that was not framed as bad.

Odysseus got raped by goddesses a lot, so you could call his posture disdainful I'd say. As the story is related he really did just want to get home to his superlatively excellent wife.

On a tangent, I do like how the phrase "holy moly" is a direct allusion to the Odyssey.

How does "holy moly" relate to the Odyssey?

Moly was the sacred herb that freed Odysseus from Circe’s spell.

Whether he is disdainful should be judged by what Odysseus says and do. Not by what goddess do.

In the story Odysseus is not behaving in disdainful way to gods at all. He is not disrespectful, he is not treating gods as unworthy. It quite the opposite the whole time.

I will add that his respect towards gods is something Athena brings up at one point as argument towards other gods and argument works. Odysseus gets help. For that matter, Odysseus gets a lot of godly help.

There is one god that is angry with him trying to kill him (cause Odysseus killed his son without knowing it is gods son) and one that keeps him trapped on island cause she likes his presence. Odysseus never express disdain toward her through nor toward gods in general.

I accept your correction. Still, Odysseus clearly doesn't like being held as a sex slave by not one but two different goddesses.

Imo, his situation was considerably better then the one of slaves. He was kept not allowed to leave and yes he had sex he did not wanted aka rape.

But not every prisoner is slave. The slaves are present in the books.

Slaves are also killed by Odysseus himself if they had sex with suitors, no regard is made to whether sex was voluntary and odysseus himself claims that sex was rape before (but he just guesses that).

It is not like that story took much regards with regards of rape.

Perhaps disdain is the wrong word. But did not Odysseus claim that he beat Troy without the help of the gods?

I know the blinding and taunting of the cyclops was when he pissed off Poseidon. But I seem to recall that other gods were mad at him too.

Edit: killing Helios cattle was also a bad move.

Odysseus had the favor of Athena though, and I don't think he ever lost it.

He did not knew cyclop was Poseidons son. At that point, Odysseus was pirate during pirate things - stealing from random island. Cyclop being Poseidons son is Odysseus being unlucky (or just karma). There was no intention to attack Poseidons family.

Odysseus did not killed Helios cattle, he told his men not to do so. His men did killed them after they disobeyed Odysseus.

Athena argues that Odysseus did sacrificed a lot more then usual towards gods at one point.

I dont know what Odysseus claimed after he beat Troy, sorry.

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