As a means of understanding the world through speculation and storytelling, science fiction has antecedents back to mythology. Following the 18th century development of the novel as a literary form, in the early 19th century, Mary Shelley's books Frankenstein and The Last Man helped define the form of the science fiction novel.

Frankenstein or The Modern Prometheus, generally known as Frankenstein, is a novel written by the British author Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley. Shelley started writing Frankenstein when she was 18 and finished when she was 19. The first edition was published anonymously in London in 1818. Shelley's name appears on the second edition, published in 1831. It is often considered the first fully realized science fiction novel due to its pointed, if gruesome, focus on playing God by creating life from dead flesh.

Science fiction (abbreviated SF or sci-fi with varying punctuation and capitalization) is a broad genre of fiction that often involves speculations and commentary on human or planetary existential impact based on current, future, or imagined science or technology. Science fiction differs from fantasy in that, within the context of the story, its imaginary elements are largely possible within scientifically established or scientifically postulated laws of nature (though some elements in a story might still be pure imaginative speculation). Exploring the consequences of such differences is the traditional purpose of science fiction, making it a "literature of ideas". Science fiction is largely based on writing entertainingly and rationally about alternate possibilities in settings that are contrary to known reality.