No single person “invented” science fiction, but a few key writers are most often credited with creating and shaping it as a genre. Different critics point to different “founders” depending on how they define science fiction.

Core short answer

  • Many modern scholars treat Mary Shelley as the “mother of science fiction” because of her 1818 novel Frankenstein , often called the first true science‑fiction novel.
  • Others call Jules Verne or H. G. Wells the “fathers of science fiction” for turning scientifically framed adventures and speculative ideas into a recognizable popular genre in the late 19th century.
  • A few historians push the origin much further back, to earlier “proto–sci‑fi” like Johannes Kepler’s Somnium (1634) or Lucian of Samosata’s A True Story (2nd century), which already used space travel and strange worlds in a quasi‑rational way.

Mini timeline of “who invented sci‑fi?”

  • 2nd century: Lucian’s A True Story includes travel to outer space, alien life, and interplanetary war, so some fans jokingly say he “invented sci‑fi” long before the term existed.
  • 17th century: Astronomer Johannes Kepler writes Somnium , later praised by Isaac Asimov and Carl Sagan as an early science‑fiction story because it uses contemporary astronomy to imagine a trip to the Moon.
  • 1818: Mary Shelley publishes Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus , replacing Gothic magic with speculative “science” like galvanism and anatomy; this is why she’s often put forward as the one who truly launches the modern form of the genre.
  • Late 1800s: Jules Verne and H. G. Wells systematically build stories around technology, exploration, evolution, and time travel, which is why they are widely marketed as the genre’s foundational “fathers.”

Why there’s no single inventor

  • The label “science fiction” is modern, but stories using scientific ideas and imaginary technologies appear across many centuries, so historians see a long evolution rather than a single moment of invention.
  • Because of that, people on forums and in criticism argue from different angles: some prioritize historical firsts (Lucian, Kepler), some modern novel form (Shelley), and others popular genre impact (Verne, Wells).

Quick takeaway

If the question is “who invented sci‑fi?” the most defensible short form is:

  • Earliest ancestors: Lucian and Kepler.
  • First modern sci‑fi novelist: Mary Shelley.
  • Major “fathers” who cemented the genre: Jules Verne and H. G. Wells.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.