When Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein first appeared in 1818, it did more than just unsettle readers with the image of a stitched-together creature; it provided a new template for how literature could interrogate the consequences of human ingenuity [2]. By placing a character’s actions within the framework of scientific possibility rather than pure magic, Shelley helped pivot storytelling toward a mode of speculative inquiry that would eventually become known as science fiction. Today, the genre is a vast, often contradictory landscape, ranging from the laser-focused physics of a “hard” science fiction story to the sprawling, star-spanning adventures of a space opera [2]. At its core, however, science fiction remains a way of asking “what if?”—using the laboratory, the starship, or the digital interface to hold a mirror up to the human condition [1].

A coiled spring on an open manuscript in a blue study