Science fiction writers such as Isaac Asimov, Carl Sagan, Jules Verne, H. G. Wells, Robert Heinlein, and Ray Bradbury probe the future. Through their work, readers explore contemporary socio-economic, political, historical, and scientific issues in juxtaposition to similar issues facing future societies. As a genre, science fiction emphasizes the importance of scientific laws, realistic accuracy, a thematic concern for the future, and the place of humanity in the universe. Although many definitions of science fiction exist, certain specific commonalities appear in the genre.
Science fiction attempts to use what is known to hypthesize about the unknown.
Through his writing educated Romans read about space travel and the adventures of a man whose ship was lifted from the Atlantic Ocean by a storm and deposited on the moon. Beginning in the 17th century, a steady stream of speculative and technologically-oriented literature appears in European literature. Verne's stories of irony and satire attacked society. His Captain Nemo invented the submarine to fight imperialism and war, and in his From the Earth to the Moo n, Americans launch a moonship from Florida. Wells's TheTime Machine , published in 1895, is a social commentary on the changing social and political futures of humankind as Europe transitioned from an agrarian to an industrial society.