Saturday morning SF

Once again playing the if-I-had-unlimited-funds-with-which-to-indulge-my-slightest-whims game sees me getting ready to hop into my Lear Jet next week and zoom across the world to catch an upcoming exhibition at the British Library which presents the history of SF down the ages.

You can see a few of the goodies on display here. See - even Kipling wrote SF! (There's also a link on the side to a China Mielville interview in which he waxes lyrical about genre writing.)

The exhibition includes True History by Lucian of Samosata, possibly the first ever science fiction story. It dates from the 2nd century AD. (This is a 17th-century Dutch edition.)

True History is about a war to rule the Morning Star by the kings of the Moon and the Sun. It includes dog-faced men fighting on winged acorns, cloud-centaurs and stalk-and-mushroom men. What more could you want from a story?