So while the early Hollywood science fiction consisted of little more than shout-out action sequences, it did not take long for popular authors to recognize the potential of science fiction. These new 20th century popularists of science fiction would go back to the genre's roots. The Origins of Contemporary Science Fiction Science fiction can be argued to have very old origins, possibly even dating back to classical times. He used such fantastic settings to make astute but discrete comments and criticisms against society. He was a satirist and his work is no generally classified in the genre known as Menippean satire.
Meippean satire is characterized by fantastic and sometimes other worldly settings.
It typically involves ludicrous circumstances and characters that are presented freakishly comic, almost alien manners. Modern examples of Menippean satire are Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels , both of which may be argued to be ancestors of contemporary science fiction. Despite its supposed historical deficiency in capturing female audience, it is ironic that the first distinct work of science fiction is going to be written by a woman. These works were literary in nature and science fiction still had yet to reach the wide audience. All of these books reached wide audiences.