Here’s a look at two forgotten early ventures into the form of story- telling that we now call science fiction. My fondness for the ancient Greeks prompts me to examine a pair of works by Lucian, the Greek philosopher who lived in the 2nd century C.E. Lucian was noted not just for his philosophical observations but also for two works that defied definition by his contemporaries but would easily fall into the category of science fiction today. Both works are from roughly 150 C.E.
1. ICAROMENIPPUS – The title, obviously, was inspired by the myth about Icarus using wings crafted by his father Daedalus to fly too close to the sun, which hubristic act led to his death. In this work Lucian depicted his hero Menippus using one wing from an eagle and one from a vulture to fly to Mt Olympus, and from there to the moon. He discovered that 
the moon (on which he could breathe just like on Earth) was populated by the souls of the deceased (roughly twelve hundred years before Dante’s Paradiso). From the moon Menippus made the astonishing observation that Continue reading
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