Micromegas

Author: Francois Voltaire

The name means "Little, Big", and like Gulliver's encounters with the Lilliputians and Brobdingnagians, there is a lot of play with issues of scale. But it is a very different sort of story. Voltaire uses a tale of alien encounters to examine the philosophical ideas of his day. Micromegas is actually a scientist from a planet around Sirius who is exiled for his heretical views and decides to visit our Solar System. Micromegas is about 23 miles tall, and when he reaches Saturn he meets a dwarf who is only one-twentieth of his size. But though Micromegas is so much bigger in every sense, including lifespan and intellect, the two are both scientists and strike up a friendship. Together they visit Earth, where at first they conclude that the beings are too tiny to have any genuine intelligence. Then they encounter a boatload of philosophers and develop a way of communicating with them, only to laugh at the puny ideas of the puny Earthmen. Why it's on the list: Micromegas is one of the key works in the development of science fiction. It is the first of what the French call the "contes philosophique", the philosophical tale, that is a distinct brand of ideas-led science fiction.