Wednesday, January 07, 2026

A 2nd Century space opera

The above video discusses the satirist Lucian of Samosata's work A True Story. In it, his protagonists get caught up in a whirlwind and get carried to the moon, where they get involved in a war between the Moon and the Sun over Venus. 

Because it takes place in outer space, a lot of people call it the first science fiction story. I don't think that is accurate. I think he is actually lampooning old-timey travel books which had a tendency to add all sort of fanciful nonsense to the tales to boost interest and sales.    

He also threw barbs at his contemporaries. One of his lines is "Plato was not there. It is said that he was living in an imaginary city under the constitution and laws that he himself wrote." So, it fits much more under the label of travel-writing satire and general lampoonery than science fiction. Still, it is interesting.

By the way, there are no women on the moon, so maybe it is actually a tragedy.

 

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