Science Fiction ...as invented by Johannes Kepler!

What with it being a wet, wet day during the the Easter holidays I thought I'd sit down and catch up on some reading - and where better to start than with a book I've been meaning to read for years, and which has been around for centuries: Somnium, by none other than Johannes Kepler.

If you hunt around online online you will find countless discussions about who invented Science Fiction. Jules Verne and HG Welles are usually given priority - though many sources will point to Mary Shelly who had written Frankenstein (1818)

almost a century before either came to prominence. But the argument seems academic, when you factor in Kepler's book which was published by his son (after his death) - in 1634.

In all honesty, it's not much of a book. It comes in around 7000 words in total - which is roughly equivalent to 20 pages today. And even then, it jumps around a bit and can be hard to follow. But its still fascinating. I read it in this translation here: Somnium - A Dream, by Johannes Kepler - Frosty Drew Observatory & Sky Theatre

For those unsure about committing to the full read, this is my edited version of the story (in as much as I follow it)

Our narrator falls asleep and dreams the story of a 14 year old boy, Duracotus.

Duracotus lives in Iceland with his mother. At midsummer each year, they would gather herbs, which she would then cook them up (accompanied by religious rites) and sell them in small goat-skin bags to sailors, who seemed to consider them good luck.

Out of curiousity, Durocrotus cuts up one of the bags and ruins a sale, and - in a fury - she sells him to the captain of a passing ship, which brings him to Denmark - where he meets (the very real) Tycho Brahe and learns from him about the night sky. Presumably Kepler based this passage on the years he had spent working for Brahe.

Years later, ( and without rancour - he is clearly a very forgiving young man) he returns home to his mother and bonds with her over their shared love of astronomy. To a modern eye, there is a sharp contrast between his scientific approach and her supernatural interest, but this doesn't seem to bother Kepler.*

She then summons a 'daemon' who takes up the story, and who propels our hero to the moon, a journey that takes 4 hours and for which the writer must be sedated...

'These circumstances which are natural to spirits are applied force to man. We go on our way placing moistened sponges to our nostrils. With first section of the voyage complete, our conveyance becomes easier. Then we expose our bodies freely to the air and withdraw our hands. All these persons are gathered into a ball within themselves, by reason of pressure, a condition which we ourselves produce almost by a mere sign of the head. Finally, on arrival at the moon, the body is directed into its intended place by its own accord. This critical point is of little use to us spirits because it is excessively slow. Therefore, as I said, we accelerate by gravity and go in front of the man's body, lest by a very strong impact into the Moon he might suffer any harm. When the man awakes, he usually complains that all his members suffer from an ineffable lassitude, from which, however, he completely recovers when the effect of the drugs wears off, so that he can walk.'

You might expect that this would be that starting point for a fascinating account of the civilisation that Kepler imagined on the moon....but no. Though it does seem that he had imagined people there, he fills most of the rest of the book with an account of how the night sky appears for an observer on the moon. Though that's not uninteresting and shows us just how learned Kepler was:

just as in one of our years the Sun revolves 365 times and the orbits of fixed stars 336 times; or more precisely, in four years the Sun revolves 1461 times but the orbits of fixed stars 1465 times for us, so for them in one year the Sun goes around 12 times, the orbit of fixed stars 13 times; or more precisely, in 8 years the Sun goes around 99 times, the orbits of fixed stars 107 times. But they are more familiar with a 19 year cycle. In that number of years, the Sun rises 235 times and fixed stars 254 times.

Another passage describes how to those who live on the moon, the earth is either always visible in the night sky, or never visible. Reminding us that the idea of tidal locking is not new - and really should have been familiar with the writers of this other early attempt at science fiction: Journey to the Moon, 1902... ...and The Equations of Motion

There are only occasional references to the society found on the moon.

In one section we are told that the natives there who can see the earth, like nothing more than to sit and watch it in the sky, whereas on the far side of the moon, we learn that

Whatever springs from the land or walks upon the land is of a monstrous size. Increases in size are very rapid. Life is of short duration because all living things grow to such an enormous bodily mass. The Privolvans have no fixed dwelling place. In the space of a single day, they traverse the whole of their world in hordes, following the receding waters either on legs that are longer than those of our camels, on wings, or in boats. If a delay of very many days is necessary, they crawl through the caves according to each one's nature

Kepler never even tried to publish the book himself and I wonder if he considered it complete.

It would be great to hear more of the world he had dreamt up for moon dwellers, but sadly they are not to be found in the published version - because the writer wakes up and realises that the whole thing was a dream!

*its hard not to wonder at this description of the fictional mother in light of the fact that Kepler's own mother was tried for witchcraft: Katharina Kepler - Wikipedia