She rode through London in a coach pulled by eight white bulls, wore dresses that scandalized Samuel Pepys into near-incoherence, and published critiques of both Hobbes and Descartes. She also wrote science fiction 152 years before *Frankenstein*. Her name was Margaret Cavendish — the woman who kept writing the future while her century tried to close the door.
"Cavendish describes a fictional, air-powered engine that moves golden, otherworldly ships, which she says “would draw in a great quantity of Air, and shoot forth Wind with a great force.” She describes the mechanics of this steampunk dream world in precise technical detail."
"As divisions and wars enter the plot, the Duchess wonders why her world “should prize or value dirt more than men’s lives, and vanity more than tranquility.”
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/one-of-the-earliest-science-fiction-books-was-written-in-the-1600s-by-a-duchess
I read it some time ago. You can too.
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