Lucian of Samosata

Writer. Wrote arguably the earliest science fiction work.

Lucian of Samosata (c. AD 125 – after AD 180) was a rhetorician and satirist who wrote in the Greek language. He is noted for his witty and scoffing nature. Although he wrote solely in Attic Greek, he was ethnically Assyrian.

Lucian was also one of the earliest novelists in Western civilization. In A True Story, a fictional narrative work written in prose, he parodied some fantastic tales told by Homer in the Odyssey and some feeble fantasies that were popular in his time. He anticipated "modern" fictional themes like voyages to the moon and Venus, extraterrestrial life and wars between planets, nearly two millennia before Jules Verne and H. G. Wells. His novel is widely regarded as an early, if not the earliest science fiction work.

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Source:

1.) Lieutinent- Hime (2004). "Lucian's Philosophy and Religion". Lucian the Syrian Satirist. Kessinger Publishing. p. 43. ISBN 9781417927746. "Both of them struck at a great religion, but they had very different objects in view. Voltaire, a theist, tried to level the obstacles that barred the way into the temple of Theism ; Lucian, an atheist, tried to raze the temple itself."