Micromegas

A classic Enlightenment tale accompanied by 18 other pieces, including "Plato's Dream" and "Memnon"—all in a new translation Micromegas is a 650-year-old, 39-kilometer-high giant from the planet Sirius who can speak 1,000 languages and has been expelled from his homeland for writing a heretical tract. On Saturn he befriends the local secretary of the Academy of Sciences—a comparative dwarf, being only two kilometers high—and the two decide to travel to earth together, where they will make startling discoveries about human nature.