Science fiction is the art of the possible, of worlds that have not yet occurred, of places that have yet to be lived in. But it is also the art of the second chance, and much of the great work in science fiction - either in literature or in film - addresses worlds that have been essayed (although sometimes only in fiction) and that have failed and that have been tinkered with in an attempt to get them right. In many ways, and not simply because it is historically one of the first works of science fiction, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is one of the fundamental texts of science fiction because it is the story of a scientist who seeks to create something that will address the flaws of the world, and in doing so makes those flaws even more difficult to overcome.
Science fiction in its penny-dreadful aspects can appear to be about the celebration of science and technology, a suggestion that science really is here to save us all and that there is no problem that humanity will ever find ourselves in from which technology cannot abstract us. But the more important works of science fiction are about precisely the opposite, are about the ways in which technology and science are likely to lead us into arrogant assumptions about our ability to fix any problem if only we try hard enough. Frankenstein is, again, a useful model for all of science fiction: He creates a new form a life and potentially an entire new era, but when he realizes the flaws within his creature and his vision instead of casting them out and beginning again (or casting them out and realizing that the act of creation lies properly only in the hands of the gods) he attempts to fix the problems in his creation, desperately compounding his original mistakes through his arrogance. This is Frankenstein's description of himself at the beginning of the novel, and this sentiment runs throughout the entire opus of science fiction:
I believed myself destined for some great enterpris...