Voltaire's "Micromégas" is a philosophical novella that follows two giant extraterrestrial beings as they visit Earth and observe humanity. It is considered an early work of science fiction, using its cosmic perspective to satirize human vanity and philosophical disputes.
Sources for Voltaire — Micromégas
Voltaire — Micromégas in First Science Fiction and Proto Science Fiction Stories
Held in the First Science Fiction and Proto Science Fiction Stories chamber of the Babel Nexus Index.
- Lucian of Samosata — A True Story (175)
- Francis Bacon — The New Atlantis (1626)
- Johannes Kepler — Somnium (1634)
- Francis Godwin — The Man in the Moone (1638)
- Cyrano de Bergerac — Comical History of the States and Empires of the Moon (1657)
- Cyrano de Bergerac — The States and Empires of the Sun (1662)
- Margaret Cavendish — The Blazing World (1666)
- Jonathan Swift — Gulliver’s Travels (1726)
- Ludvig Holberg — Nicolai Klimii Iter Subterraneum (1741)
- Mary Shelley — Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (1818)
- Mary Shelley — The Last Man (1826)
- Edwin A. Abbott — Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions (1884)
- Samuel Butler — Erewhon, or Over the Range (1872)
- Mark Twain — A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1889)
- Edgar Rice Burroughs — A Princess of Mars (1912)
- Edgar Rice Burroughs — Tarzan of the Apes (1912)
- Jules Verne — Journey to the Center of the Earth (1864)
- Jules Verne — From the Earth to the Moon (1865)
- H. G. Wells — The Time Machine (1895)
- H. G. Wells — The War of the Worlds (1898)
- Edgar Rice Burroughs — Thuvia, Maid of Mars (1916)