elz: (offworld)
elz ([personal profile] elz) wrote2010-01-28 10:09 pm

Something new, every day

Things I somehow did not know:

True History or True Story (Greek: Ἀληθῆ διηγήματα) is a fantastic travel tale by the Greek-speaking Syrian author Lucian of Samosata, the earliest known fiction about travelling to outer space, alien life-forms and interplanetary warfare. Written in the second century AD, the novel has been referred to as "the first known text that could be called science fiction". The work was intended by Lucian as a satire against contemporary and ancient sources, which quote fantastic and mythical events as truth.


Also, I was trawling through Project Gutenberg and would like to inform you that you can now download The North American Slime-Moulds: A Descriptive List of All Species of Myxomycetes Hitherto Reported from the Continent of North America, with Notes on Some Extra-Limital Species for free, in HTML or plain text. I love Project Gutenberg.

(...though the problem here is that I click on a link like that thinking, "ha ha, slime moulds," and the next thing, I know it's an hour later, and I know more about the Myxomycetes of Iowa in 1899 than will ever possibly be useful to me in my life. Damn you, Project Gutenberg.)