"True History" -- the oldest Sci-fi written 1,800+ years ago

[fear]

I always thought the earliest Sci-fi was written around the time of Jules Vern or maybe very slightly before. Apparently the earliest known science fiction was written by a guy named Lucian of Samosata in the 2nd century, though.

From wikipedia:

True History or True Story (Greek: Ἀληθῆ διηγήματα) is a fantastic travel tale by the Greek-speaking Syrian author Lucian of Samosata, the earliest known fiction about traveling to outer space, alien life-forms and interplanetary warfare.

I haven't read the whole thing yet but you can get it here.

I skipped ahead to the part where Lucian describes space travel, landing on the moon, and looking back at Earth:

about midday, when we were out of sight of the island, a waterspout suddenly came upon us, which swept the ship round and up to a height of some three hundred and fifty miles above the earth. She did not fall back into the sea, but was suspended aloft, and at the same time carried along by a wind which struck and filled the sails.

p. 140

For a whole week we pursued our airy course, and on the eighth day descried land; it was an island with air for sea, glistening, spherical, and bathed in light. We reached it, cast anchor, and landed; inspection soon showed that it was inhabited and cultivated. In the daytime nothing could be discerned outside of it; but night revealed many neighbouring islands, some larger and some smaller than ours; there was also another land below us containing cities, rivers, seas, forests, and mountains; and this we concluded to be our Earth.

It's strange to think that somebody who lived so long ago recognized that the moon was a place and that one could go to it (even if he got some details a bit wrong).