topics: |  fiction-short | china | medieval | science-fiction

This story from China of the 17th c., is about the potential of the
telescope.  It is probably the first science fiction in the world, well
before the industrial revolution itself. 

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Li Yu turns to the familiar world of Chinese scholars and their stylized,
allusion-filled discourse.  The stories are part of the text Twelve Lou
(storiess 4 5 6 7 9 11) that Li Yu published in 1657 or 58.  These writings
are more orless cotemporaneous with Rou Putuan Rou Putuan (Carnal Prayer
Mat) - a preface to the latter was dated early 1657.

In the opening story, the beautiful Serena, from the noble Zhang family, is
wooed by the scholar Jiren, who spies on her household from afar, using the
telescope, which has been recently imported into China by Jesuit priests.  He
uses his observations to make it appear as if he has supernatural powers.
The story, written barely fifty years after Galileo first demonstrated the
telescope in 1607, demonstrates how new technologies can fire the creative
mind.  This may be one of the earliest Science Fiction stories anywhere,
though the fact of telescope as "science" does not seem very apposite in
today's world. - Mar 09