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Approachable translations and discussions of Lucian that reveal his world-building, world-bending, and multiversal thinking. 

Lucian of Samosata was ahead of his time. A rhetorician and writer active in the second century CE, he was one of the earliest known worldbuilders and science-fiction enthusiasts. Popular and prolific in antiquity—more than eighty texts attributed to him have come down to us today, including satires, dialogues, and part of a fictional work called True History—Lucian crafted astonishing tales that unfold on the surface of the moon or other planets, high above in Earth’s atmosphere, or through the eyes of underworld inhabitants or other entities who view mortal humans as otherworldly beings.

Ideal for readers interested in science fiction, fantasy, and mythology, this accessible collection offers a guided journey through Lucian’s many worlds. Bringing together fresh vernacular translations of eight works with substantial discussion, this selection showcases Lucian as a proto-multiversal thinker, presenting multiform narratives that herald developments in modern genres ranging from literature and film to gaming and fan fiction. Translator and editor Cynthia Polsley introduces each with a short excerpt from another piece of classical literature, showing how other ancient authors—including Homer, Ovid, and Vergil—influenced Lucian’s literary landscapes or were inspired by him in turn.

An ancient Greek guide to the heavens, translated in a new accessible modern English edition.
 
A poetic guide to the heavens, the Phaenomena of Aratus—dating from around 270 BCE—was widely known across the ancient world, second only in fame to the works of Homer. Beginning with an invocation to Zeus, the poem describes the constellations of the northern and southern skies, the celestial sphere, and weather signs. Aratus’s vivid work offered a complete handbook of astronomy, constellations, and weather, and this treatise on the night sky was later translated or adapted by luminaries including Cicero, Virgil, and Ovid. The Phaenomena remained popular throughout the Renaissance and had more than sixty printed editions by the early seventeenth century, but its fame has faded in the modern world.
 
With this edition, renowned translator and amateur astronomer Stanley Lombardo renders Aratus’s poem in reader-friendly vernacular English verse. Complete with endnotes, an accessible introduction, and astronomically accurate illustrations, The Sky Is Our Song brings this master poet’s celebration of the sky to a twenty-first-century audience, inviting new readers to follow Aratus on a visual journey through star signs, moon phases, weather phenomena, and all wonders of the heavens.