A True Story (150 AD)

sacred-texts.com

28 points·apsec112··7 comments

https://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_True_Story

"A True Story" - Lucian

It is the earliest known work of fiction to include travel to outer space, alien lifeforms, and interplanetary warfare. It has been described as "the first known text that could be called science fiction"

>Additionally, they point out that A True Story was written in response to another work that also contained science fictional elements, that is Antonius Diogenes’ lost Of the Wonderful Things Beyond Thule, whose protagonist also reached the Moon.

Well no, it's the earliest SURVIVING work. It's certainly interesting and a fascinating insight to how people have always looked to the stars.

Also, it was the one that got lucky and remains. I guess have to give it credit for that.

Is this the oldest "<submission title> (<year>)" submission on HN?

As an aside, if one does not enjoy the Fowlers' translation there is different translation done by A. M. Harmon (side-by-side with original Greek): https://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/luc/true/tru00.htm

Yes, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16442888

I think that only works for stories where the text in brackets is a number, so "(150 AD)" or "(195 BCE)" won't show up. (And of course this submission hasn't crossed the threshold of 40 upvotes yet.)

The town's so full of these confounded dials (195 BCE) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21810145

I'm quite pleased with my submission:

Pliny the Elder, “The Natural History”, Book I (79)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15660224

Reply on news.ycombinator.com