ANCIENT SCIENCE FICTION 2: SOMNIUM (1634)

Welcome to the second installment of a brand new feature here at Balladeer’s Blog. This segment will feature some forgotten early ventures into the form of story- telling that we now call science fiction.  “Ancient” is being said with poetic license in some cases, such as with this week’s subject – Somnium, written by Johannes Kepler in 1634. 

SOMNIUM – Johannes Kepler used a few details that could be made out on the surface of the moon with the new scientific inventions called telescopes as the tiny kernel of this story, whose title is Latin for “dream”. The rest was purely imaginative speculation on Kepler’s part. In Somnium the moon consists of two zones, one side a scorching desert perpetually burned by the sun, the other side a frigid wasteland that never knows light or warmth from the sun. The story also depicts moon- monsters popping in and out of caves and claims that the moon has enough air and water to support plant life, which goes from seedlings to full bloom every two weeks. Kepler simply had his protagonist and narrator “dream” himself there, hence the title.   

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