Uranus has been used as a setting in works of fiction since shortly after its 1781 discovery, albeit infrequently. The earliest depictions portrayed it as having a solid surface, whereas later stories portrayed it more accurately as a gaseous planet. Its moons have also appeared in a handful of works. Both the planet and its moons have experienced a slight trend of increased representation in fiction over time.
Uranus was discovered in 1781 and has comparatively rarely been featured in fiction since then; [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] in the catalogue of early science fiction works compiled by E. F. Bleiler and Richard Bleiler in the reference works Science-Fiction: The Early Years from 1990 and Science-Fiction: The Gernsback Years from 1998, Uranus only appears in 6 (out of 2,475) and 9 (out of 1,835) works respectively, [7] [8] compared to 194 for Mars in fiction and 131 for Venus in fiction in The Gernsback Years alone. [9] Various explanations for this lack of representation have been proposed, including the planet's relatively late date of discovery, [2] [4] its remote location, [1] [6] its presumed hostile environmental conditions, [3] and its featureless appearance in telescopes. [4]
The planet's first appearance in a work of fiction was in the pseudonymous "Monsieur Vivenair"'s 1784 novel A Journey Lately Performed Through the Air, in an Aerostatic Globe, Commonly Called an Air Balloon, from this Terraqueous Globe to the Newly Discovered Planet, Georgium Sidus , a satire of the then-reigning British monarch George III and his court. [1] [5] [10] In the subgenre of works visiting multiple locations in the Solar System that appeared throughout the 19th century, Uranus was rarely included, [1] one exception being the anonymously published 1837 novel Journeys into the Moon, Several Planets and the Sun . [2]
Early works about Uranus incorrectly envisioned it as a solid planet. Human colonization of the planet and alien lifeforms living on the surface thus became recurring themes. [3] In Stanley G. Weinbaum's 1935 short story "The Planet of Doubt", humans landing on Uranus encounter various seemingly-hostile aliens. [1] [3] [11] [12] Clifton B. Kruse's 1936 short story "Code of the Spaceways" likewise portrays the planet as having a solid surface, where space pirates with a paralysis ray have taken over a military base. [3] [13] [14] In Raymond Z. Gallun's 1940 short story "The Long Winter", methane snow falls on the Uranian surface during the decades-long winter. [1] [15] Other early depictions of Uranus include Russell R. Winterbotham's 1937 short story "Clouds over Uranus" and the Buck Rogers series. [1] [4]
Once more became known about Uranus through advances in planetary science, fiction writers started depicting it more accurately as a gaseous planet. [3] Thus Donald A. Wollheim's 1942 short story "Planet Passage" depicts a spaceship flying through Uranus, [5] Fritz Leiber's 1962 short story "The Snowbank Orbit" features the atmosphere of Uranus being used for aerobraking, [5] and Cecelia Holland's 1976 novel Floating Worlds portrays floating cities in the Uranian atmosphere as well as that of Saturn. [2] [3] Uranus also appears in Barry N. Malzberg's 1971 short story "Ah, Fair Uranus" where it hosts aliens in conflict with humanity, the television series Doctor Who , the works of Mark Brandis, and various comic books. [3] [4]
Towards the end of the century, there was a slight uptick in appearances by Uranus in science fiction, including Charles Sheffield's 1985 short story "Dies Irae" about life in the atmosphere, Geoffrey A. Landis' 1999 short story "Into the Blue Abyss" where there is life in the ocean below, and G. David Nordley's 1999 short story "Mustardseed". [1] [11] The planet appears briefly in Kim Stanley Robinson's 1985 novel The Memory of Whiteness . In games, Uranus appears as a source of deuterium and helium-3 in the tabletop role-playing game Transhuman Space and the video game series Mass Effect . [4]
Uranus' moons have appeared in a handful of works, and this has become more common as more has become known about them. [1] [4] The moons are preserved in their natural state in some works such as Kim Stanley Robinson's 1996 novel Blue Mars , and subject to resource extraction by way of space mining in others such as the video game Descent . [4] In Neil R. Jones' Durna Rangue series that started with the 1936 short story "Little Hercules", the titular cult is exiled to one of the moons of Uranus. [1] [16] Ariel was discovered in 1851 and appears in J. Harvey Haggard's 1933 short story "Evolution Satellite", where evolution on the moon is so rapid as to take place across the timeframe of an individual organism's lifespan. [1] [17] [18] [19] Miranda was discovered in 1948 and appears in G. David Nordley's 1993 short story "Into the Miranda Rift", where explorers are stranded on the surface. [1] [11] [20] Titania, which was discovered a few years after Uranus itself in 1787, appears in the tabletop role-playing game Eclipse Phase , where its canyon system Messina Chasmata is a tourist attraction. [4]
Mars, the fourth planet from the Sun, has appeared as a setting in works of fiction since at least the mid-1600s. Trends in the planet's portrayal have largely been influenced by advances in planetary science. It became the most popular celestial object in fiction in the late 1800s, when it became clear that there was no life on the Moon. The predominant genre depicting Mars at the time was utopian fiction. Around the same time, the mistaken belief that there are canals on Mars emerged and made its way into fiction, popularized by Percival Lowell's speculations of an ancient civilization having constructed them. The War of the Worlds, H. G. Wells's novel about an alien invasion of Earth by sinister Martians, was published in 1897 and went on to have a major influence on the science fiction genre.
Stanley Grauman Weinbaum was an American science fiction writer. His first story, "A Martian Odyssey", was published to great acclaim in July 1934; the alien Tweel was arguably the first character to satisfy John W. Campbell's challenge: "Write me a creature who thinks as well as a man, or better than a man, but not like a man." Weinbaum wrote more short stories and a few novels, but died from lung cancer less than a year and a half later.
Wonder Stories was an early American science fiction magazine which was published under several titles from 1929 to 1955. It was founded by Hugo Gernsback in 1929 after he had lost control of his first science fiction magazine, Amazing Stories, when his media company Experimenter Publishing went bankrupt. Within a few months of the bankruptcy, Gernsback launched three new magazines: Air Wonder Stories, Science Wonder Stories, and Science Wonder Quarterly.
The planet Venus has been used as a setting in fiction since before the 19th century. Its opaque cloud cover gave science fiction writers free rein to speculate on conditions at its surface—a "cosmic Rorschach test", in the words of science fiction author Stephen L. Gillett. The planet was often depicted as warmer than Earth but still habitable by humans. Depictions of Venus as a lush, verdant paradise, an oceanic planet, or fetid swampland, often inhabited by dinosaur-like beasts or other monsters, became common in early pulp science fiction, particularly between the 1930s and 1950s. Some other stories portrayed it as a desert, or invented more exotic settings. The absence of a common vision resulted in Venus not developing a coherent fictional mythology, in contrast to the image of Mars in fiction.
The Moon has appeared in fiction as a setting since at least classical antiquity. Throughout most of literary history, a significant portion of works depicting lunar voyages has been satirical in nature. From the late 1800s onwards, science fiction has successively focused largely on the themes of life on the Moon, first Moon landings, and lunar colonization.
Fictional depictions of Mercury, the innermost planet of the Solar System, have gone through three distinct phases. Before much was known about the planet, it received scant attention. Later, when it was incorrectly believed that it was tidally locked with the Sun creating a permanent dayside and nightside, stories mainly focused on the conditions of the two sides and the narrow region of permanent twilight between. Since that misconception was dispelled in the 1960s, the planet has again received less attention from fiction writers, and stories have largely concentrated on the harsh environmental conditions that come from the planet's proximity to the Sun.
Jupiter, the largest planet in the Solar System, has appeared in works of fiction across several centuries. The way the planet has been depicted has evolved as more has become known about its composition; it was initially portrayed as being entirely solid, later as having a high-pressure atmosphere with a solid surface underneath, and finally as being entirely gaseous. It was a popular setting during the pulp era of science fiction. Life on the planet has variously been depicted as identical to humans, larger versions of humans, and non-human. Non-human life on Jupiter has been portrayed as primitive in some works and more advanced than humans in others.
Saturn has made appearances in fiction since the 1752 novel Micromégas by Voltaire. In the earliest depictions, it was portrayed as having a solid surface rather than its actual gaseous composition. In many of these works, the planet is inhabited by aliens that are usually portrayed as being more advanced than humans. In modern science fiction, the Saturnian atmosphere sometimes hosts floating settlements. The planet is occasionally visited by humans and its rings are sometimes mined for resources.
Pluto has appeared in fiction as a setting since shortly after its 1930 discovery, albeit infrequently. It was initially comparatively popular as it was newly discovered and thought to be the outermost object of the Solar System and made more fictional appearances than either Uranus or Neptune, though still far fewer than other planets. Alien life, sometimes intelligent life and occasionally an entire ecosphere, is a common motif in fictional depictions of Pluto. Human settlement appears only sporadically, but it is often either the starting or finishing point for a tour of the Solar System. It has variously been depicted as an originally extrasolar planet, the remnants of a destroyed planet, or entirely artificial. Its moon Charon has also appeared in a handful of works.
Asteroids have appeared in fiction since at least the late 1800s, the first one—Ceres—having been discovered in 1801. They were initially only used infrequently as writers preferred the planets as settings. The once-popular Phaëton hypothesis, which states that the asteroid belt consists of the remnants of the former fifth planet that existed in an orbit between Mars and Jupiter before somehow being destroyed, has been a recurring theme with various explanations for the planet's destruction proposed. This hypothetical former planet is in science fiction often called "Bodia" in reference to Johann Elert Bode, for whom the since-discredited Titius–Bode law that predicts the planet's existence is named.
Neptune has appeared in fiction since shortly after its 1846 discovery, albeit infrequently. It initially made appearances indirectly—e.g. through its inhabitants—rather than as a setting. The earliest stories set on Neptune itself portrayed it as a rocky planet rather than as having its actual gaseous composition; later works rectified this error. Extraterrestrial life on Neptune is uncommon in fiction, though the exceptions have ranged from humanoids to gaseous lifeforms. Neptune's largest moon Triton has also appeared in fiction, especially in the late 20th century onwards.
The fictional portrayal of the Solar System has often included planets, moons, and other celestial objects which do not actually exist. Some of these objects were, at one time, seriously considered as hypothetical planets which were either thought to have been observed, or were hypothesized to be orbiting the Sun in order to explain certain celestial phenomena. Often such objects continued to be used in literature long after the hypotheses upon which they were based had been abandoned.
Phaeton was the hypothetical planet hypothesized by the Titius–Bode law to have existed between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, the destruction of which supposedly led to the formation of the asteroid belt. The hypothetical planet was named for Phaethon, the son of the sun god Helios in Greek mythology, who attempted to drive his father's solar chariot for a day with disastrous results and was ultimately destroyed by Zeus.
Harl Vincent was the pen name of Harold Vincent Schoepflin, an American mechanical engineer and science fiction author. He was published regularly in science fiction pulp magazines.
Comets have appeared in works of fiction since at least the 1830s. They primarily appear in science fiction as literal objects, but also make occasional symbolical appearances in other genres. In keeping with their traditional cultural associations as omens, they often threaten destruction to Earth. This commonly comes in the form of looming impact events, and occasionally through more novel means such as affecting Earth's atmosphere in different ways. In other stories, humans seek out and visit comets for purposes of research or resource extraction. Comets are inhabited by various forms of life ranging from microbes to vampires in different depictions, and are themselves living beings in some stories.
"Message from space" is a type of "first contact" theme in science fiction. Stories of this type involve receiving an interstellar message which reveals the existence of other intelligent life in the universe.
Florence Carpenter Dieudonné was an early speculative fiction writer, active in America in the late 1800s.
Amazing Stories Quarterly was a U.S. science fiction pulp magazine that was published between 1928 and 1934. It was launched by Hugo Gernsback as a companion to his Amazing Stories, the first science fiction magazine, which had begun publishing in April 1926. Amazing Stories had been successful enough for Gernsback to try a single issue of an Amazing Stories Annual in 1927, which had sold well, and he decided to follow it up with a quarterly magazine. The first issue of Amazing Stories Quarterly was dated Winter 1928 and carried a reprint of the 1899 version of H.G. Wells' When the Sleeper Wakes. Gernsback's policy of running a novel in each issue was popular with his readership, though the choice of Wells' novel was less so. Over the next five issues, only one more reprint appeared: Gernsback's own novel Ralph 124C 41+, in the Winter 1929 issue. Gernsback went bankrupt in early 1929, and lost control of both Amazing Stories and Amazing Stories Quarterly; associate editor T. O'Conor Sloane then took over as editor. The magazine began to run into financial difficulties in 1932, and the schedule became irregular; the last issue was dated Fall 1934.
The Sun has appeared as a setting in fiction at least since classical antiquity, but for a long time it received relatively sporadic attention. Many of the early depictions viewed it as an essentially Earth-like and thus potentially habitable body—a once-common belief about celestial objects in general known as the plurality of worlds—and depicted various kinds of solar inhabitants. As more became known about the Sun through advances in astronomy, in particular its temperature, solar inhabitants fell out of favour save for the occasional more exotic alien lifeforms. Instead, many stories focused on the eventual death of the Sun and the havoc it would wreak upon life on Earth. Before it was understood that the Sun is powered by nuclear fusion, the prevailing assumption among writers was that combustion was the source of its heat and light, and it was expected to run out of fuel relatively soon. Even after the true source of the Sun's energy was discovered in the 1920s, the dimming or extinction of the Sun remained a recurring theme in disaster stories, with occasional attempts at averting disaster by reigniting the Sun. Another common way for the Sun to cause destruction is by exploding, and other mechanisms such as solar flares also appear on occasion.
Science-Fiction: The Gernsback Years is a 1998 reference work covering the history of English-language science fiction magazines from 1926 to 1936, comprising 1,835 individual stories by more than 500 different authors across a total of 345 issues from 14 magazines. It was written by E. F. Bleiler with the assistance of his son Richard Bleiler, a follow-up to their previous Science-Fiction: The Early Years (1990).
For a long while, relatively little attention was paid in sf to the planets beyond Jupiter. Of them only Saturn was known to the ancients – Uranus was discovered in 1781, Neptune in 1846 and Pluto in 1930 – and it is therefore the only outer planet featured in Athanasius Kircher's and Emanuel Swedenborg's interplanetary tours. Uranus, however, is included in the anonymous Journeys into the Moon, Several Planets and the Sun: History of a Female Somnambulist (1837).
[...]
Uranus is little discussed in traditional sf. Stanley G Weinbaum's "The Planet of Doubt" (October 1935 Astounding) is one of the rare stories set on this world. The titular Cities of Cecelia Holland's Floating Worlds (1976) float above Saturn and Uranus.
since these worlds have reasonably been viewed as cold and inhospitable, they have generally been underutilized as settings for science fiction stories.
Beyond Saturn lies Uranus, first featured in fiction in an obscure pamphlet written in 1784, three years after its discovery. In general, it has been ignored by most sf writers [...]
Due to its remoteness, very few reports of its alternativersal variants have been placed on the record.
Among stories dealing with Uranus are Stanley G. Weinbaum's "The Planet of Doubt" (1935), involving strange aliens on its surface; Charles Sheffield's "Dies Irae" (1985), about adapting life to survive in the planet's atmosphere; and Geoffrey Landis's "Into the Blue Abyss" (1999), in which alien lifeforms are found in the Uranian ocean. G. David Nordley's "Into the Miranda Rift" (1993) is about human explorers trapped on the mysterious, jigsaw-puzzle moon, Miranda.
Haggard had included them in a previously-written novella, "Evolution Satellite" (December 1933-January 1934 Wonder Stories), which Gernsback had rejected but later published and praised for its downbeat ending. It is set on Ariel, the satellite of Uranus (see Outer Planets), which has not hitherto been explored but turns out to be a world where lifeforms are infinitely adaptable and soon absorb the explorers.
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