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Moon on the mind: two millennia of lunar literature

Fireworks, wild swans and super-cannons were propelling people mentally Moonwards long before 1969, reveals David Seed.
By
  1. David Seed

    1. David Seed is a professor in the English department at the University of Liverpool, UK. He has written and edited numerous books on science fiction, most recently US Narratives of Nuclear Terrorism Since 9/11.

The Moon’s luminous, cratered face, visible to the naked eye, has sparked the imaginations of writers and scientists for centuries. Our satellite became a blank canvas: a proxy Earth on which writers could project alternative societies and satirize terrestrial ones, and a fruitful testing ground for scientific and technological speculation.

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Nature 571, 172-173 (2019)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-019-02090-w

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