Interesting read if you like the science of the 17th century. This one was labeled as the first science fiction book by Asimov and so I decided to give it a read. Much more on the science part of it though as the other elements aren't as developed as a story. That was kind of the point though as there was a disagreement with the church on teaching sciences. Special permission was needed to teach science in the schools. Overall, not bad if you want to check out the origins of science fiction.

Very astronomical. If I understood the science behind it, it'd have been a wonderful experience reading it. Of course, I didn't, but I still appreciate what Kepler was doing. It's a short, fun read. Recommended for astronomers.

keplere saygımı arttırdı, takdir ettim fakat bu durum kitabı kimseye okuması üzere önermeyeceğim gerçeğini değiştirmez:)

this is a relatively sad edition. no information about the translator and a poor translation that doesn't always make logical or grammatical sense in english. the story/history of the text is interesting, but i'll be looking for a different version.

1634


Dream & notes https://dspace2.creighton.edu/xmlui/h...
https://somniumproject.wordpress.com/...




Kepler wrote his Somnium in Latin before 1610, and the text suggests the completion date of the central story may be 1608. Some parts may have been written when Kepler was a student at the University of Tubingen from 1589 to 1594, where philosophy and theology, mathematics, astronomy and astrology were among his studies. From about 1620 until his death in 1630, Kepler revised Somnium with extensive footnotes and added the framing structure of the “dream”. The revised version was first published posthumously by Kepler’s family in 1634.

Kepler’s Somnium relates a “dream” about an Icelandic adventurer and student named Duracotus, who learns an ancient secret of space travel from space-dwelling “daemons” who can carry travelers between the moon and the earth during a solar eclipse. Kepler imagines our moon as an alien world – named Levania by its inhabitants – with weather and climate, and alien peoples adapted to life on the moon.

Somnium also contains an early astronomy lecture that describes how the sun, stars and planets would appear to the inhabitants of the moon as it orbits the earth – an echo of the idea that the earth orbits the sun, as theorised by Copernicus. By imagining that life could exist on the moon, in orbit around the earth, Kepler subtly challenged the 2000-year old theory, still favoured by university scholarship at the time, that the earth was the only inhabited world, immovable and located at the centre of the universe.

In 1615, Kepler’s mother Katharina Kepler was accused of witchcraft and spent years on trial for her life. Kepler himself suggested that descriptions in Somnium of magic performed by Duracotus’ mother Fiolxhilde may have contributed to the accusations against his own mother, Katharina.

When Kepler revised the original story in his later years he added footnotes explaining or justifying the details of the story. He also added the framing structure of the “dream” of the title, perhaps to suggest Somnium wasn’t intended as a direct challenge to the authorities of the time.

Lucian of Samosata in the 2nd Century CE wrote a comic account of travelling to the moon on a ship caught in an ocean waterspout, where the ship’s crew encounter the exotic armies of the Moon, Sun and other planets, but there is no science in it. About 50 years earlier, the Greek historian Plutarch had written seriously about the possibility that the mottled appearance of the moon was caused by vegetation, weather or oceans on the lunar surface. In his footnotes, Kepler wrote that he was inspired by the writings of Lucian and Plutarch to write Somnium.

Plutarch also reported legends of an ancient gateway between the worlds, sited in the northern islands of Thule. Kepler adopted this idea for Somnium when he casts his main characters, the Icelandic journeyer Duracotus and his mother Fiolxhilde, who communes with spirits or “daemons” who have the power to travel over a bridge of shadow between the earth and the dark side of the moon during an eclipse. Even with this seemingly magical method of transport, Kepler’s Somnium is the first “hard” science fiction story: a tall tale of travel to the moon combined with descriptions of space travel and the lunar landscape, a radical scientific description of astronomy as seen from the moon, and inspired speculation about the climate of the moon and the experiences of the civilized Levanians who live there.

Somnium, written around 1608 but not published until 1634, after Kepler’s death, predates Francis Godwin’s “The Man in the Moone”, published in 1638 but thought to be written around 1620. Godwin’s story relates a voyage in a gondola harnessed to a team of lunar geese – gansas – that migrate between the earth and the moon. A few decades later, the French dramatist and duelist Cyrano de Bergerac wrote L’Autre Monde: ou les États et Empires de la Lune (The Comical History of the States and Empires of the Moon) and Les États et Empires du Soleil (The States and Empires of the Sun), which were published after his death in 1658 and 1662 respectively. In the first, Cyrano travels to the moon on a rocket powered by firecrackers and meets a race of four-legged moon men with musical voices and hunting weapons that also cook the game they kill.

Johannes Kepler (1571-1630), der neben Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) und Isaac Newton (1643-1727) als einer der bedeutendsten Naturforscher den Neuzeit gilt, hat mit Somnium, einen der ersten, phantastischen Texte in Deutschland geschrieben. (heute würde man ihn der SF zuordnen).
In seinem 1609 geschriebenen Traum, zeigt er der wissenschaftlichen Welt, wie er sich das Universum vorstellt, ganz besonders ist er vom heliozentrischen Weltbild des Nikolaus Kopernikus überzeugt, ohne das seine Keplerischen Gesetze, die er während den Wirren des 30jährigen Krieges, veröffentlichte, nicht denkbar gewesen wären. Er folgt in diesem Traum seinen griechischen Vorbildern, Platon und Plutarch, die ihre Spekulationen auch in Form von Traumreisen veröffentlichten. Kepler, der Begründer der Astrophysik, war einer der ersten, der aufgrund wissenschaftlich-mathematischen Denkens eine völlig neue Himmelsmechanik erarbeitete und auch nicht öffentlich davon abrückte, obwohl die Kleriker aller Coleur dies verlangten (wie sie es mit Kopernikus gemacht haben und mit Galileo Galilei zu Keplers Lebzeiten), im Deutschland des 30jährigen Krieges gab es wohl andere Themen. Sein Somnium ist die Vision einer Welt, die harmonisch und schön ist, weil sie vernünftig ist.
Dieses Buch, das auf 20 Seiten den Keplerischen Traum vom Mond und der Astronomie (Im Gegensatz zur Astrologie, die Kepler ja auch benutzt hat, um Geld zu verdienen) beinhaltet, dazu sind 100 Seiten Fußnoten Keplers, um auch den Ungebildeten klarzumachen, was er meint, wird mit einem Essay von Beatrix Langner gekrönt, das einem das Leben und die Lebensumstände und auch die Rezeption von Somnium erklärt.
Für alle, die mehr über den Giganten der deutschen Naturwissenschaft wissen wollen und auch den Text des "ersten deutschen SF-Romans" lesen wollen, ist dieses Buch unverzichtbar.

Wow, what a work. The fiction here is short but very interesting, exciting even. The notes and the appendix letters were more interesting to me because you can see Kepler and his work in a historical way. After having read Banville's book on Kepler, I have a much creator appreciation and knowledge of Kepler, his life personally and historically and most importantly, his ideas that made breakthroughs in science and astronomy.

De las primeras ciencas ficciones. Por eso la leí.

Pues está interesante que imagina todo super completo el mundo ese en donde llegan/sueñan. Pero nada taaaan interesante tbh.

Me recuerda a cuentos de Lovecraft, especialmente el de las Montañas de la locura.

Le pondría 2.5 pero se lleva las 3 por su relevancia; aunque yo no le llamaría ciencia ficción aún, sí va para allá.

tEver wonder what it's like on the moon? The freakin MOON!?

tThe seminal science-fiction story reads a bit like a dissertation, because it started out as one! A lot of the early stuff is very dry speculation done by astronomers with flowery frames added (and done in Latin, no less!). Since this dates from like 1600, this is all just part of the context.

tI didn't have as much fun with “Somnium” as I did with Lucian's “True History”, but that just makes sense since Lucian was making fun of embellished accounts while Kepler was engaging in more straightforward scientific speculation. It's a bit dry, but it's honest stuff.

t“Somnium” does contain some elements that I enjoy in older sci-fi, being that it has a frame story (our narrator dreams of reading the book!), and an introduction to an observer/hero whose whole purpose is to witness another world. Duracotus, son of a witch, in Iceland, gets sold to a sailor and winds up in Denmark where he becomes an astronomer's pupil. Our guy goes back to Iceland and he and his mother get some spirits to send them to the moon!

tWe learn about Privolvans and Subvolvans and how the Earth (or “Volva”) looks from the moon, how long days and nights last, effects of heat from the sun and the reflected heat from the Earth, and the various types of eclipses. Only towards the very end do we get to learn about the huge animals and the plants that grow huge and then die in a hurry. So, basically, it ends right when it's getting good.

tAlthough most of “Somnium” is super dry and not strictly entertainment, it's still an important text with fun flourishes and of course that delightful notion that the other spheres are dense with exotic life.

tOh, and this could probably do with a better translation, if anybody gets around to it.

Book Review of Somnium: The Dream, or Posthumous Work on Lunar Astronomy, by Johannes Kepler

Edward Rosen’s translation of Johannes Kepler’s Somnium, begins with a brief introduction, which provides insight into the story’s composition and publication history, followed thereafter by dedication to Philip III, Landgrave of Hesse, and subsequently the story itself. Though imaginative, Somnium as a narrative struggled to hold my attention. Kepler is a talented writer, but as a storyteller I find him lacking.

Somnium is of the first fictional literary novels to conjecture about Life on The Moon, much of which is influenced by Second Century author Lucian of Samosata’s A True Story, which has been described as the first sciencefiction novel and depicts detailed accounts of monsters, hybrid-creatures and alien humanoids that inhabit The Moon. It is clear from both Somnium and Kepler’s notes thereof that his imagination is heavily influenced by Lucian’s novel and attempts to mimic its creative ingenuity.

What most intrigues me about Somnium is that it reveals a side of Kepler that would otherwise be unapparent, that is, his creative faculty. Indeed, even Kepler’s notes on Somnium tend to interweave truth and falsehood, which is at times frustrating, given the similarities between the narrative and Kepler’s reality. The protagonist of the story, Duracotus, for example, concerns himself with the nature of the heavens, primarily regarding The Moon, which as an astronomer is of course significant to Kepler. However, the most striking similarity is that between Duracotus’s mother and Kepler’s own, who in his later years underwent serious accusations of witchcraft, of which Kepler played a significant role in her ultimate acquittal.

The extent to which Kepler’s worldview is occultic is evident in his methods of calculation, which tend towards the abstract more often than the logical. Though mathematics is not incorporated into the narrative itself, Kepler’s extensive notes on the story indicate the extent to which he uses it to realize the fantastical world of Somnium. It may indeed surprise some to realize how entrenched occultism is in the natural philosophy of medieval astronomers and scientists generally, wherein astrology and astronomy were concomitant and to be studied in tandem for a comprehensive cosmological understanding.

I reiterate again how unimpressed I am with the actual content and structure of the story itself, however it is invaluable as both a work of literature and as a historical document. Edward Rosen brilliantly captures the personality and mindset of Kepler in conjunction with the personalities and respective mindsets of those that influenced and were influenced by Kepler, the foremost scientist of his time.

That said, his validity as pure astronomer is suspect given his poor eyesight and reliance on the research of others, primarily that of his former boss, Tycho Brahe, who is heralded as the most accurate estimator of the position and movement of heavenly bodies of his time. Whether Kepler’s intent was to entertain readers or to validate his lifework, unfortunately I do not think he succeeded at either. Nevertheless, Edward Rosen’s translation and insight into Kepler as a flawed and imperfect person provide the story with the substance and flare that make the read worthwhile.

Absolutely fascinating book; I really don't think I've ever read anything quite like it! Apparently, many consider to be the first science fiction ever written, and certainly that makes quite a bit of sense. I would, however, more properly call it a work of "fiction science". Whereas science fiction as we know it today uses science to tell a story, it seems that Kepler is using a story to explain science.

This is a book that is going to be difficult to fully appreciate for just about anyone who reads it. For an astronomer the wild conjecture of extraterrestrial life and the dream-daemon-trip to Mars could be frustratingly un-imperical. Meanwhile for a layman the (apparently very accurate) mathematical calculations are excessive and at times indecipherable. And yet it makes both think about the world differently. By considering how a resident of Mars (or Levania as they know it) sees their place in the universe, we must reconsider our own place in it.

Recommended read for everyone! (and its very short so you have no excuse!)

This book is the weirdest. THE WEIRDEST. Must be read by all.