Review: A True Story

A True Story by Lucian of Samosata
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Rating 3 out of 5 | Grade C+; Tales as tall of a titan, they be

It is said that 'A true story' by Lucian of Samosata, is, arguably, the first science fiction story ever written. Arguably because, as is mentioned in the footnotes, several works which Lucian references in his story, are lost, either to the sands of time or the fires of Alexandria.

Second, even though it is lauded as an ancient science fiction story, it is more of a satirical fantastical narrative. The closest it comes to sci-fi, is when the crew of Lucian's ship, ride some gnarly currents and end up reaching the kingdoms of the moon. And this being, way, way, before Gravity was a known thing, of course the space surrounding the moon is made of air, and has Greeks in it forming a kingdom.

And of course they're at war with the neighboring Sun Kingdom, which as far as the people of that time were concerned, was completely inhabitable, and was only 'slightly' bigger than the sun. All the planets, asteroids & stars around the two, are inhabited by all manner of fantastical creatures, which are human, humanoid, or a chimeric conglomeration of who knows what all, riding simple earth creatures like ants, wasps, swans etc, only magnified to 10 folds. Maybe larger.

Frankly, any combination of absurd man and animal steed you could think of at the time, Lucian has included it in the monumental battle between the Moon & the sun. In which Lucian & co. participate in, to win accolades, riches, and even get offered the crown prince as his bride (no, you didn't hear that wrong. The Greeks were, very open minded)

Only, none of it is true; Duh, obviously. No, I mean, Lucian knew none of this was true. He might've not been the first sci-fi author in history, but he was definitely the great, great, great grandfather of internet trolls.

You see, (as far as I understood from google), Lucian lived in a time, when historians, and his literary peers, had a habit of, let's say exaggerating things by the teensiest bit. So much so that, any journey which the Hellenics took outside the Mediterranean, to the realms of far away mystic lands such as India & Africa, were almost always accompanied by tall tales of adventure.

Often times, the tales of fibs and fantastical creatures & where to find them would undermine the actual historical records that they were meant to convey. Lucian seemed quite miffed, that these absurd accounts were what they were going to leave to the future readers.

So, in true troll fashion, in order to ridicule them and show how absurd their delusions were, he set out of write a by the numbers 'epic' journey to some far off lands. And filled it with all the non-sensical troupes and clichés he could think of. Including,

# Mysterious islands filled with otherworldly maidens who would drain your life force.
# Freaky winds & currents which would serendipitously deposit you to some mythical locations.
# All new lands which they visited, were either ruled by, or at least had the presence of Greek culture & gods.
# Wherever they end up in, befitting some ancestors to the Europeans, Lucian and crew interfere in the affairs of the indigenous people, and fight their wars for them.
# Tales which grew more and more absurd in disbelief. At one point, he pulls a full Jonah (or Pinocchio for the uninitiated) and gets trapped in the vast town sized belly of a leviathan sized whale.

Despite all this, you can't really hate on him, because, at the very beginning of the story he gives the disclaimer,

"Be it understood, then, that I am writing about things which I have neither seen nor had to do with nor learned from others--which, in fact, do not exist at all and, in the nature of things, cannot exist. Therefore my readers should on no account believe in them."

What a Mad lad, am I right?

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Other than the obvious, one thing which struck me as I was reading this story, was its similarity to a particularly popular manga series. Specifically the part where a shipful of people, travel some gravity defying currents, to reach a mythical city full of sky people who could walk on clouds.








And seeing as how Oda loves to take inspiration from various cultures, myths and historical events, there's a good chance, this story might've in some indirect way inspired him to develop the whole Skypiea arc. That, in my opinion is the more impressive feat.






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