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What is the oldest science fiction story? It doesn't need to be set in the future, it could also be set in the past or a combination of the two. Plese include the author, thanks!

Adamant
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Captain is King
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  • Closely related to http://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/142142/were-there-science-fiction-stories-written-during-the-middle-ages and http://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/93537/what-was-the-first-sci-fi-work-to-feature-a-spaceship. You may want to clearly define what you consider qualifies as science fiction. – Jack Nov 18 '16 at 05:30
  • @Jack No, that question was about science fiction stories in the Middle Ages, and the oldest science fiction story seems to be Lucian's "True History" from before the Middle Ages. Which someone posted, wrongly, as an answer to that other question. – user14111 Nov 18 '16 at 05:37
  • @user14111 I never said they were duplicates, just related, anyone who finds this question interesting is probably also going to be interested in those. – Jack Nov 18 '16 at 05:41
  • Also related: Who was the earliest female science fiction writer? – Molag Bal Nov 18 '16 at 05:57
  • Agreed, defining what you mean by science fiction is probably important for this question. Strictly speaking, such assumptions come into play whenever people use the [tag:science-fiction-genre] tag, but they’re probably particularly important here. You may not consider the Epic of Gilgamesh to be sci-fi, for example. – Adamant Nov 18 '16 at 06:04
  • I knew there was a duplicate somewhere. – Adamant Nov 18 '16 at 08:27

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The Epic of Gilgamesh, author unknown, date circa 2,100 BC. It's science fiction, because it's about how the world was believed to be at the time it was written, although the same story written today would be fantasy.

Mike Scott
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    So what makes it science fiction? (I haven't read it.) "Because it's about how the world was believed to be at the time" isn't enough of a reason; you could say the same about Pride and Prejudice. – user14111 Nov 18 '16 at 06:17
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    If anything it's a superhero fantasy story. There's very little technology. – Valorum Nov 18 '16 at 08:08