Is Frankenstein Sci Fi?

In the horrible/uncharitable/anti-feminist introduction by Rieger to the edition I’m reading, he claims that we shouldn’t see Frankenstein as precursor to science fiction because: “The science-fiction writers says, in effect, since x has been experimentally proven or theoretically postulated, y can be achieved by the following, carefully documented operation. Mary Shelley skips to the outcome and asks, if y had been achieved, by whatever means, what would be the moral consequences? In other words, she skips the science” (xxvii). This reflects a simplistic notion of science fiction, both its motivation and its actual content. Predictive fiction – I think of P.D. James’s Children of Men or Asimov's I, Robot – considers the consequences of certain futures or developments. A gesture might be made to the “how” of such development but the emphasis is on postulation of consequences; the scientist (or more likely, technologist or engineer) deals with “how” and it is precisely the privilege of the fiction author to assess what would happen if such and such were possible, by whatever means. The scientist takes on supernatural (as in superintendent of nature) or natural powers; god-like or nature-like, she can bend or determine the laws of life. In this, she fulfills a role more like God in Paradise Lost than the author of a how-to-create-y text-book, as Rieger implies. Perhaps the science fiction reader enjoys the possibility than a person could accomplish y by “scientific” –i.e. human and natural – means more than by “magic” – i.e. supernatural in the sense of nothing-to-do-with nature – that tends to dominate so-called fantasy novels. But the effect of such accomplishments, the world brought about by a new technical or physical possibility, that is almost always the focus of “science fiction,” or again, as I would prefer, predictive fiction.

Predictive Fiction and Frankenstein

“The event on which this fiction is founded has been supposed, by Dr. Darwin, and some of the physiological writers of Germany, as not of impossible occurrence. I shall not be supposed as according the remotest degree of serious faith to such an imagination; yet, in assuming it as the basis of a work of fancy, I have not considered myself as merely weaving a series of supernatural terrors.” – Mary Shelly, Frankenstein

This seems good advice on which to recommence my novel. She incites her reader with the simple claim that, like all good ghost stories, her story is based on the truth. Isn’t this what readers of science fiction prefer over those of fantasy? (if such a distinction is helpful) Science fiction implies a building from science, from experiment and experience – from truth. Especially in predictive fiction, the author extrapolates from present reality toward something more than reality but not outside its structure, by definition. At least, that is the kind of science fiction/predictive fiction that I prefer.

If Frankenstein were predictive fiction, it is a successful one and not only for its readability. So many of its themes grow from reality and so many more intertwine with our present. We can make life now, in many different ways. We must take responsibility for life, on the planet, for the life we permit and the life we take away. The mutated fish can face us like The Creature; the IBF child can turn to its parents with the same demands; but most importantly, every ‘naturally’ conceived child can—and perhaps will – address its creators with need for justification for its origin. So we create gods and turn to them: to pose the question of our origins and our destinations

Last week, I was lucky to see a vampire ballet based on a short story by John Polidori, a friend who stayed with Byron and Shelly while she wrote Frankenstein. The dancing had its limitations but the costumes and the concept were remarkably innovative.

Now back reading Frankenstein...