of Samosata Lucian 1 hr read

A band of adventurers is swept up in a whirlwind to the Moon, drawn into a war between the peoples of the Sun and Moon, and voyages on through ever more outrageous marvels.

Lucian of Samosata's second-century 'True History' is a foundational proto-science-fiction satire, wildly inventive and gleefully absurd. Witty, ancient, astonishingly modern. Read it for the ur-text of the fantastic voyage, a two-thousand-year-old romp to the Moon and beyond that still delights.

In its time

Published in 1894, during the 1890s, wells arrives.

Reading it

1 hr read (a novelette, room for a turn or two).

Illustrated by

Aubrey Beardsley