Science Fiction from 125 AD

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What was the first work of science fiction? It’s not Star Wars or War of the Worlds. In fact, it wasn’t written in the last thousand years. Its author is Lucian of Samosata, an Assyrian man born around 125 AD. In this episode, we look at Lucian’s decidedly science fictional journey through space and analyze some of the deeper meanings behind the aliens and strange worlds we visit along the way.

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Sources:

Fredericks, S.C., “Lucian’s True History as SF.” Science Fiction Studies, Vol. 3, No. 1 (Mar., 1976), pp. 49-60.

Marsh, David. “Beyond the Pillars of Hercules: Voyage and Veracity in Exploration Narratives.” Annali D'Italianistica, vol. 10, 1992, pp. 134–148. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/24004482.

Parrett, Aaron. “Lucian's Trips to the Moon.” The Public Domain Review, 26 June 2013, https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/....

Sabnis, Sonia. “Lucian's Lychnopolis And The Problems Of Slave Surveillance.” The American Journal of Philology, vol. 132, no. 2, 2011, pp. 205–242. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/41237465.

Swanson, Roy Arthur. “The True, the False, and the Truly False: Lucian’s Philosophical Science Fiction.” Depauw, Depauw, https://www.depauw.edu/sfs/backissues....

Whibley, Charles. Lucian's True History. United Kingdom, A. H. Bullen, 1902.

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/45858...