It may be heretical of me, but I do not consider the 1818 novel Frankenstein: or the Modern Prometheus by Mary Shelley to be a work of science fiction.

That is not to take anything away from this groundbreaking, culturally impactful, piece of art. Shelley laid out a horror novel that possesses deep philosophical themes on the nature of humanity and responsibility. However, in my opinion it is not science fiction.

Science Fiction is the genre of art that looks at the current scientific and technological state of the world, extrapolates from that starting position along possible advances and uses that extrapolation to explore themes, stories, and plots of a possible future. Frankenstein for all its inventions does not do that.

Shelley makes no attempt in the novel to elaborate on the scientific process that leads to the creature’s creation. There is absolutely no, ‘because we have this bit of technology or science, we might have this thing in the future’ which is the beating heart of SF. The creation process used by the titular character is described in a manner that is more akin to sorcery than science. Mary Shelley was not interested in the process that might leads a scientist to the creation of life, and that process is science fiction, but rather her interest spring from the deep and troubling moral questions raised by the concept. Questions that are so profound as science and technology reach heights unimagined we find ourselves grappling with the same issues she raised. There is no doubting her brilliance. But she did not extrapolate and that is what separates, genre-wise, her work from that of Wells and Vern. Philosophically Wells tried to keep up with her, but she beat him on that front handily and Vern always seemed more concerned with the engineering than the ethics. All three giants were critical in laying out thematic and conventions that we now accept as science-fiction by Shelley did not invent the genre.