Classic Science Fiction

Classic Science Fiction stories by the visionary pioneers of the genre. Stories from the 40s through the early 60s, the "Golden Age" of SF and Pulp Magazine publications.

Mellonta Tauta - Edgar Alan Poe, 1849  

 Things of the Future

Edgar Allan Poe's Mellonta Tauta is likely the first American SF story ever published. It is the tale of a female observer flying her balloon named 'Skylark' on a journey through the galaxy. It's wickedly funny, lyrical and perhaps the inspiration for another classic SF, E.E. 'Doc" Smith's The Skylark of Space, 1915. 

Poe’s satirical dystopian science-fiction story “Mellonta Tauta” (“Things of the Future”) first appeared in Godey’s Lady’s Book in February 1849. Poe died later that year, and it’s fitting that this, one of his final published works, focuses on the fleeting and faulty nature of memory.

  

 

"The Nine Billion Names of God" is a 1953 science fiction short story by British writer Arthur C. Clarke. The story was among the stories selected in 1970 by the Science Fiction Writers of America as one of the best science fiction short stories published before the creation of the Nebula Awards. It was reprinted in The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume One, 1929–1964.

 

In a Tibetan lamasery, the monks seek to list all of the names of God. They believe the Universe was created for this purpose, and that once this naming is completed, God will bring the Universe to an end.

"Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus" is an 1818 Gothic Novel written by English author Mary Shelley. Frankenstein tells the story of Victor Frankenstein, a young scientist who creates a sapient creature  in an unorthodox scientific experiment.