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Audiences appreciate when fiction takes them to the edge of a new cultural era. But when the premise, genre conventions, and narrative techniques are so far ahead of their time, the result can feel strange and even perplexing. Without the influence of fellow writers, these authors are, in a way, navigating uncharted territory.
This can lead to unexpected ways their stories break with the conventional tropes of their genres, especially since those tropes weren’t even established yet. Even when an author predicts a future technology or societal norms correctly, readers often focus more on the inaccuracies rather than the prescience. Nevertheless, these authors still deserve recognition for their imaginative visions.
10. 'The Machine Stops'
E.M. Forster’s short story is a fascinating paradox: both prophetic and critical. It depicts a world where people live in isolation, communicating remotely through microphones and video feeds. They rarely leave their rooms and have become pale, unhealthy beings, maintained by a benevolent but all-encompassing system known as The Machine. However, a rebellious figure named Kuno (fans of the 2019 game *Disco Elysium* may recognize this) longs for the surface world and dreams of breaking free from the suffocating grip of the Machine. His decision proves to be a wise one, as the title suggests.
Forester crafted this response to H.G. Wells's socialist fable A Modern Utopia, offering a compelling contrast of ideologies. Wells’s Eloi, from his 1895 work The Time Machine, bears significant resemblance to the fate of humankind within the Machine’s heart. Yet, the Eloi’s tragic existence stems from the oppressive nature of capitalist class systems.
The most striking aspect of this story isn't simply its foresight into phenomena like parasocial internet relationships or the overdependence on tools such as Zoom. What’s remarkable is that it anticipates synchronized sound in cinema—written in 1909, when consumer-grade radio technology was still more than a decade away. Forester’s vision of the future is both uncanny and prescient, though we may still have the opportunity to change our course before it comes fully to fruition.
9. The Shapes
In relation to Wells, his 1898 novel War of the Worlds is often considered the pioneering work of alien encounters with humanity. However, this was actually predated by about a decade. The early tale, largely inaccessible until Jason Colavito’s English translation, is Les Xipéhuz—written by the team of J.H. Rosny-Aine in 1888, and it stands as their inaugural science-fiction-like narrative.
The Shapes tells the tale of a Mesopotamian tribe from around 5000 BC who come across a terrifying species of blue aliens, shaped like cones, cylinders, and discs, simply referred to as The Shapes. These beings possess the horrifying ability to set humans ablaze from a distance. The humans encounter these creatures multiple times with devastating outcomes. In a bid to appease them, the tribe offers a horse as a sacrifice, which the aliens misinterpret as a threat. Desperate, the tribe turns to an unconventional and scientifically-minded outcast, Bokhunen, who uncovers a way to exploit The Shapes' vulnerability through scientific reasoning.
Before science fiction had even gained widespread popularity, this story ventured into some unexpected territory, especially for its era. Notably, it never clarifies whether The Shapes originated from another planet. They might have been an odd offshoot of Earth’s own evolutionary processes. Additionally, the story introduces death cults that form in response to The Shapes' attacks, with followers believing these fatalities are a form of divine judgment.
One of the most unexpected elements is when Bokhunen observes The Shapes reproducing by releasing clouds of spores. As Chris Lackey pointed out on the H. P. Lovecraft Literary Podcast episode discussing the story, this kind of scene would be more at home in the psychedelic fiction of the 1970s than in a 19th-century historical tale.
8. Tommy Thumb’s Pretty Song-Book
Although this 1744 book is relatively obscure, it contains the earliest known printings of many nursery rhymes familiar to young children. It is the first recorded version of timeless rhymes like “Mary Mary, Quite Contrary,” “Baa Baa Black Sheep,” and “Hickory Dickory Dock.” All the classics.
What stands out the most about this book is how many of its stories would be deemed inappropriate for young children today. One story is even titled “Piss a Bed.” Another, “My Mill,” tells of a mill that grinds pepper and spice, while the speaker’s counterpart has a mill that processes “rats and mice.”
Perhaps the most shocking part comes in “Piss a Bed,” where it boldly claims that “butt” rhymes with “up.” While it’s common to credit the Brothers Grimm with introducing dark and edgy themes in 19th-century children’s literature, this book demonstrates that such grimness was already evident in children’s stories a century earlier.
7. The Notting Hill Mystery
Mystery enthusiasts will know that Wilkie Collins’s 1868 novel The Moonstone: A Romance is often hailed as the first detective story. However, Collins was preceded by six years. The real pioneer was Charles Warren Adams, writing under the pseudonym Charles Felix. His novel, The Notting Hill Mystery, was originally serialized in 1862 and later published as a book in 1865. The novel is presented as a collection of letters chronicling a murder investigation.
Without a clear template for the murder mystery genre to follow, Adams made some rather curious choices. For instance, the premise of the murders—where a woman dies from poisoning while sleepwalking and it is revealed that her husband had taken out three insurance policies on her—feels a bit forced and implausible. The researcher who revived the book on National Public Radio couldn’t resist poking fun at these details.
Another issue is that the detective isn't a private investigator or any character with emotional depth, but rather an insurance investigator, distancing him from the action and likely diminishing the reader’s engagement. Most significantly, the investigator fails to bring the culprit to justice, which removes much of the emotional payoff. Still, the novel reportedly made quite an impact at the time. However, stories with more universally appealing plot elements likely explain why the book didn’t leave a lasting mark on the literary world.
6. Romance in Marseille
Claude McKay was hardly a stranger in his lifetime. A key figure in the Harlem Renaissance, McKay made history in 1928 as the first black American author to land on the bestsellers list. Nevertheless, he himself acknowledged that this particular novel, largely completed in 1933, was unpublishable at the time, and so he put it aside upon finishing it.
When it finally saw publication in 2020, the novel’s themes and content seemed so timely that it almost read like something a conservative comedian would mock as the go-to 'book of the month' among liberals: A Moroccan man who secretly stowed away on a ship to New York City wins a lawsuit after his feet are amputated due to frostbite sustained during his imprisonment on the journey. Returning to Marseille, he interacts with prostitutes, working-class queer individuals, socialists, and more.
As Molly Young pointed out in Vulture Magazine, the only discordant note in McKay’s narrative is a stereotypical portrayal of a Jewish lawyer. Even the most progressive stories often carry remnants of the cultural biases of their time.
5. Journey to the West
Imagine if Homer’s Odyssey were set in China, where the protagonist is no longer Odysseus but a monk accompanied by a band of eccentric monsters. Their mission? To spread teachings to a pagan land over several years, with a hefty dose of humor. This is the essence of the 1592 Ming Dynasty novel, attributed to Wu Cheng’en. The author, however, never claimed credit during his lifetime, as the book was written in a style considered crude for its time. Given that it features scenes like the monkey king, Sun Wukong, urinating into the Buddha's hand, it’s easy to see why the author might have feared backlash.
How many contemporary tropes can be found in this fantastical adventure? From the very first page, Sun Wukong—born from a giant stone—gains the ability to shoot lasers from his eyes by bowing to the four cardinal directions, much to the terror of Heaven’s Jade Emperor. The story also follows the real-life missionary Xuanzang (known as Tripitaka in the tale), who traveled to India to spread Buddhist teachings. With its vast array of mythical characters, the novel anticipates modern crossover stories like The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
The novel playfully deconstructs many fantasy tropes, such as Sun Wukong becoming immortal multiple times and even attempting to overthrow Heaven. It’s remarkable that despite its vulgarity, which made it controversial in its time, it has become widely influential. For example, the legendary anime Dragonball Z features many characters that are essentially reimagined versions of those in this classic tale.
4. “The Great Automatic Grammizator”
Before 2023, this 1953 tale was not exactly a highlight of Roald Dahl’s oeuvre. It tells the story of John Knipe, an inventor and would-be writer, who creates a machine capable of arranging words according to specific grammatical patterns and eventually incorporates plot structures. Over time, the machine begins producing sufficiently good stories, causing the world’s mediocre writers to either adapt their style to be absorbed by the machine or risk being driven out of the industry altogether.
Dahl didn’t entirely invent this concept. George Orwell’s 1949 novel 1984 already featured the Ingsoc government using a ‘versificator’ to generate official music without human involvement, and another machine for creating illicit content. However, what truly resonated in Dahl’s story, especially seventy years later, was the focus on how this machine affects the publishing world and the creative professionals who rely on it.
3. True History
Moving to the 2nd century AD, we find one of the earliest examples of science fiction—Lucian’s True History. A satire of travel writing, this piece is often regarded as the first of its kind. Lucian, a Syrian writer known for his sharp wit in Athens, previously authored works like ‘Teachers of Orators,’ offering tongue-in-cheek advice on how to become a successful speaker by essentially deceiving your audience. Think of it as a much earlier version of Machiavelli’s The Prince. True History begins with the preposterous statement: 'I confidently declare that I am lying.'
Lucian continues his wild tale by recounting a bizarre journey with a crew of fifty, culminating in their sailing into space aboard a wooden ship propelled by a whirlwind. Upon reaching the Moon, they find themselves caught in a conflict between the vulture-riding moon dwellers and the ant-riding inhabitants of the Sun, who are fighting for control of Venus. The moon people, it turns out, have a sizable army, including both infantry and non-flying cavalry.
Lucian describes how to set up a two-dimensional battleground for a fight: Enormous spiders are tasked with spinning a vast web between the Moon and Venus to serve as the terrain for the soldiers and their mounts. This idea is so bizarre that it’s difficult to imagine a modern sci-fi author even considering it, especially in an era when we’re used to spaceships and futuristic technologies. It’s a clear testament to Lucian’s boundless creativity and sarcastic flair.
Dustin Koski is the author of Robin Hood vs. King Arthur, a narrative that is both ahead of its time and simultaneously out of step with it.
2. “The Green Knight”
Claude McKay was probably right that if he had published Romance in Marseille when he wrote it, it would have been a commercial failure and likely led to legal issues. However, he probably wouldn't have been risking his life over it. But what about the anonymous writer of 'The Green Knight'? Consider that this well-known poem, which recounts the tale of King Arthur’s knight Sir Gawain, was likely written around AD 1390, less than a century after European states had declared homosexuality a crime punishable by burning at the stake.
The poem, as anyone who has seen the 1973 or 2021 film versions knows, follows Sir Gawain as he journeys to meet the Green Knight, who is to chop off his head in return for Gawain having decapitated the Green Knight a year earlier at Christmas in Camelot. On his journey, Gawain visits the castle of Lord Bertilak, where an agreement is made: Gawain will receive a trophy from Bertilak’s hunts in exchange for returning whatever he receives from the castle. Because Lady Bertilak kisses Gawain repeatedly, he dutifully passes on the kisses to the lord before continuing his quest.
Despite the profound shift in LGBT cultural norms, the 2021 adaptation of the poem feels less accepting of homosexual interactions compared to the original work. As Princess Weekes noted in her review for TheMarySue.com, the power dynamic between Lord Bertilak and the much younger Gawain is skewed (with Bertilak wielding obvious authority and essentially forcing the kiss). This serves as a reminder that societal standards are rarely clear-cut, especially when green is in the mix.
1. “The Three Apples”
While 1862's *The Notting Hill Mystery* is often credited as the first detective mystery novel, Edgar Allan Poe’s 1841 short story “Murders in the Rue Morgue” is generally recognized as the first detective mystery short story. However, this turns out to be a slight misjudgment—around 900 years before Poe’s time, the *1001 Arabian Nights* collection featured a tale about Jafar the vizier investigating the case of a woman found dismembered in a trunk at the bottom of a river. For added suspense, Jafar is given just three days to solve the case or face execution himself.
There are several aspects of this story that make it feel far from one of Scheherazade’s finest. For one, Jafar is an unusually passive protagonist, relying mostly on sheer luck—either characters confessing crimes he has to investigate or someone with vital information conveniently living in his house. Furthermore, Jafar spends more time lamenting his situation than actually doing any detective work. But, given the societal norms of the time, it’s only natural that the world’s first murder mystery would have some stylistic elements that might not sit well with today’s readers.
