A True Story

A True Story is a short novel written in Greek in the second century AD by the Syrian-born author Lucian of Samosata. It satirises the outlandish tales that some ancient sources presented as fact, especially those that told of mythical or fantastic events as if they had really happened. It is Lucian's best-known work and, despite its mocking tone, it is the oldest surviving fiction about voyages into outer space, alien life and interplanetary war, which is why it is often regarded as an early forerunner of science fiction.

The story opens with a declaration that everything in it is a lie. The narrator and his companions sail beyond the Pillars of Hercules, are blown off course by a storm, and reach marvellous islands before a whirlwind carries them to the Moon. There they find themselves caught in a war between Endymion, king of the Moon, and Phaethon, king of the Sun, over the colonisation of the Morning Star. After a peace is agreed, the journey continues with a return to Earth, a battle with fish-people inside a whale, and a visit to the Island of the Blessed, where they meet heroes of the Trojan War and Homer, and see liars punished, among them Herodotus and Ctesias.

The work supports very different readings: as literary criticism, as a parody of Homer and of the historians of its day, or as a precursor of science fiction and fantasy. Its play between truth and falsehood, which even includes a promised sequel that was never preserved, makes it a text that resists classification and that shaped later imaginary voyage literature.