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Archive: Other Books > A True History - Lucian of Samosata - 5 Stars

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Jason Oliver | 3040 comments My 2nd Century book in my Century Challenge.

On Goodreads it is called Lucian's True History;

Do not let the name of this book fool you, this book is far from being true. Instead, it is a parody of the tales told at the time as truth. such as the stories of Homer and Herodotus. He calls his book A True History because it is truer than the stories at the time, because Lucian tells at the beginning it is all lies.

This story is also the first recorded Science Fiction work, with travels to space and a war between the inhabitants of the moon vs the citizens of the sun.

When the journey gets to the land of Heroes, Herodotus, called the Father of History, is being punished for the lies he published in his "Histories"

The book does end suddenly with the promise of more books to come (A True History is actually 2 books) but we do not know if they were ever published because no copies survive.

A great read especially if you have read Homer or any other epic tale before the 2nd century.


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