The First Science Fiction Novel is From the 2nd Century AD and It's Wild!

How far back does science fiction go? Would you believe all the way back to the Roman Empire of the 2nd century? That's when Lucian of Samosata wrote "A True Story" (also known as "A True History"), and in this video I'll go over the wild and crazy action he describes, as well as talking about the influences Lucian had on more recent sci-fi and other speculative fiction.
Chapters:
0:00 Introduction
2:40 Into the Unknown
4:02 The Great War
6:15 Whale of a Tale
8:13 In the Company of Heroes
11:38 Homeward Bound?
13:54 Lucian's Influence
If you like this kind of video and want me to look into other historical roots of gaming, let me know!
Follow me on Twitter @winterinformal
And watch me stream at / jasonwinter
Read "A True Story" for yourself here:
sacred-texts.com/cla/luc/wl2/...
Some media elements in this video use various versions of the Creative Commons license.
CC BY SA 1.0
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CC BY-SA 2.0
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CC BY-SA 3.0
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CC BY-SA 4.0
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[@shawna620]

Enjoyed this-- top quality! I've subbed.

[@matthewsmollen2045]

Great quality content dude!!! Keep it up
This just sounds like Ancient Greek fan fiction 🤣

[@FantasyRoots]

Haha, that's a great description, wish I would have included it!

[@CaptainShield]

Lucian is clearly high as heck.

[@Moeller750]

I enjoyed this video so much, I want to leave 1.000 comments, so more people can enjoy it!

[@rcrawford42]

I've tried to read it a couple of times, but the army lists lose me. BUT, the first place he describes, the island with the wine rivers and the women, appears in a David Drake novel. I *think* it's "Cross the Stars", but it may also be one of the Ensign Flandry books.

[@joefarrow1599]

Awesome video!
Why would you call this science fiction and not fantasy? And why is this any more science fiction than just the original Greek myths?

[@Harbringer12]

My bet would be the inclusion of space travel.

[@FantasyRoots]

@@Harbringer12 That's pretty much it, and it's why I said early in the video that "some would consider" it the first sci-fi novel. That's the general consensus I got from reading various commentaries about it.

[@plainbrad]

Did your translation have a disclaimer/forward the read something like "I confidently pronounce that truthfully, I lie. … I write of matters which I neither saw nor suffered, nor heard by reports from people that I made up … let no man therefore in any case believe these words.” A disclaimer like that makes me laugh.

[@FantasyRoots]

The version I used said, "for I now make the only true statement you are to expect--that I am a liar." Which I thought was also great.

[@rcrawford42]

The whole book was a parody of travelogues by other authors, and his declaration that everything is a lie was making fun of the travelogues starting with declarations that everything the author writes is absolutely true.

[@tyeadel]

One could add religious tomes to scifi.

[@graphixkillzzz]

if this is considered "sci-fi", then i would consider all religions also fall under "sci-fi" 🤔🤷‍♂️

[@Mr-__-Sy]

You'd be surprised how true your statement is, but you need to actually look closely at how the religions are made and the bare minimum similarities they have, humans might be stupid but not that stupid to not recognise some patterns and try to understand why they are there

[@ikahloayza3530]

Religions fall into Fantasy, they deal with faith and mystycism

[@Mr-__-Sy]

@@ikahloayza3530 maybe but a lot of the template that makes the religion motifs are eerily similar to our scientific knowledge about the world