[3][4][5][6] However, the work does not fit into typical literary genres: its multilayered plot and its characters have been interpreted as belonging to science fiction, fantasy, satire or parody, and have been the subjects of scholarly debate.

[9][10] Blown off course by a storm, they come to an island with a river of wine filled with fish and bears, a marker indicating that Heracles and Dionysus have traveled to this point, and trees that look like women.

[10][17] After returning to Earth, the adventurers are swallowed by a 200-mile-long (320 km) whale,[18][19] in whose belly they discover a variety of fish people, against whom they wage war and triumph.

[b][33] In one view, Lucian intended his story to be a form of literary criticism, a satire against contemporary and ancient sources which quote fantastic and mythical events as truth.

[36] Additionally, they point out that A True Story was written in response to another work that also contained science fictional elements, that is Antonius Diogenes' lost Of the Wonderful Things Beyond Thule, whose protagonist also reached the Moon.

[36] The estranging feeling of the story as a defining element of science fiction has also been noted: ...True Stories may properly be regarded as SF because Lucian often achieves that sense of "cognitive estrangement" which Darko Suvin has defined as the generic distinction of SF, that is, the depiction of an alternate world, radically unlike our own, but relatable to it in terms of significant knowledge.

Once upon a time I gathered together the poorest people in my kingdom and undertook to plant a colony on the Morning Star which was empty and uninhabited.

[40]Modern equivalents, combining science fiction and parody in equal measure, may be found in Voltaire's Micromégas and the works of Douglas Adams.

Some Roman readers believed that the events in A True Story actually occurred, although Lucian was trying to parody untrue accounts of voyages.