Is it true that science fiction authors predicted basilisks?
Yes and no. The idea of unthinkable information that cracks the mind has a long SF pedigree, but no one got it quite right. William Gibson’s Neuromancer (1984), the novel that popularized cyberspace, is often cited for its concept of “black ice” software which strikes back at the minds of hackers — but this assumes direct neural connection to the net. Basilisks are far more deadly because they require no physical contact. Much earlier, Fred Hoyle’s The Black Cloud (1957) suggested that a download of knowledge provided by a would-be-helpful alien (who has superhuman mental capacity) could overload and burn out human minds. A remarkable near-miss features in The Shapes of Sleep (1962) by J.B. Priestley, which imagines archetypal shapes that compulsively evoke particular emotions, intended for use in advertising. Piers Anthony’s Macroscope (1969) described the “Destroyer sequence”, a purposeful sequence of images used to safeguard the privacy of galactic communications by erasing the min
