huh?

[journals.aps.org]

@barjoe, @FearlessFly

An easy search, “Most Popular Fiction Genres”.
Fantasy, Science Fiction, Dystopian, Adventure, Romance, Detective & Mystery, Horror, Thriller.

Science fiction has been around entertaining people for a long time. Throughout its run we have seen all manner of fantastical stories spanning worlds beyond ours and concepts that have always pushed the boundaries of what we know. If you were to guess just how long the genre of science fiction has gone back, what would you think? Perhaps to the 19th century, the 18th, even earlier? Well, according to a lot of opinions it goes back way further than that, and one of the texts thought to be among the first is a novel from way back in the 2nd century, which has gone on to become regarded as perhaps the first science fiction novel ever made.

The book in question is called Vera Historia in Latin, and variously A True Story or A True History in English, and is perhaps the best-known work of the prolific, influential and very popular 2nd century Greek-speaking, Hellenized Syrian author and satirist Loukianos, also called by Lucian of Samosata or just Lucian. He was mostly known as a biting satirist and rhetorician, often poking fun at superstitions, the paranormal, folklore, and religion, and he was feared for his sharp tongue and wit, which he used like a laser beam to ridicule pretty much everything and everyone. In between all of this satire, parody, criticism, and actually inventing the genre of comic dialog along the way, he also penned A True Story, which is quite a trippy tale infused with all manner of strangely prescient ideas and elements that would influence in one way or another the genre of science fiction right up to the present.
Source: a search on “the oldest science fiction”