Showing posts with label Europe. Show all posts

Slovakia - The Science of the Stars - Gustav Reuss

Malta - Lucifer's Dragon - Jon Courtenay Grimwood

Found a copy of the book

Republic of Ireland - Cloud of Desolation - Sam Baneham

offered to be lent a copy!

found ordered

11th Aug 2023

The book arrived!

Denmark - Data of death - Johannes Allen

This book was found via this rather amazing profile on twitter https://twitter.com/Rcordas. When I saw this profile and the most amazing spreadsheet that has had so many hours and hours put into it. collecting and recording hundreds and hundreds of translated science fiction and speculative fiction works!

After a little browsing through the wonderful spreadsheet I sorted the Novels tab by country of origin and scrolled down. I notice Denmark on the list. Denmark. I had searched for Danish sci fiction authors before. Mainly because I had search for Greenland science fiction authors, and Greenland is owned by Denmark, which brings up all kinds of decisions about what I can and can not tick off this list. But anyway, I have found a Danish science fiction author! After a little googling I found the below amazing independent book shop and ordered a copy: https://www.booklovers.co.uk/bookid.asp?ID=107570

I can't find any information on Johannes Allen on the internet, which is a bit frustrating, as if would be interesting to find out some more about him, and his career.

Portugal - Research

31st Jan 2023

Bit of evening googling turning up João Barreiros and a translated short story of his:
http://www.infinityplus.co.uk/stories/silent.htm so if i ever do need to start reading short online stories rather than printed physical book. More reseach will continue in the hope of a proper book.

Latvia - Research

26th Jan 2023

Sometimes the journey is just as much fun as the book I find at the end. I had a bit of time after doing my self assessment for the HMRC, and my laptop was up and running and sat on my knee. So i went to the BIG LIST and looked at the gaps in the countries i'm searching for. At this point i'm still mainly focusing on Europe, not sure why, maybe because I am European.

So any way I started with googling "Latvian Sci Fi". not much came up from the usual suspects of goodreads,com and wikipedia but I did find a really interesting article on Science Fiction In Latvian Literature (Link to a PDF). So I'll send the author of the research an email thanking them and asking for any recommendations for this project.

After another fifteen minutes of searching I came across Pauls Bankovskis and his book '18'. This does seem to be only very loosely defined as a science fiction book, as it does point towards the possibility of time travel. So this book is now a contender, but is firmly on the 'Plan B' list, as the search continues for a Latvian book that is more distinctly sci fi or science fiction!

After another fifteen minutes I've come across Tom Crosshill, who has a few sci fi short stories published online that have been Nominated for Nebula awards. These also make it onto the Plan B list, as I'm still avoiding short stories, and they feel a bit like cheating! And I think once I open the door on short stories, this project may just become a box ticking exercise. But, who knows how i'll feel about that tomorrow! Right. bed time!

Luxembourg - Ralph 124C 41+ - Hugo Gernsback

So I came across this book after a customer of mine had visited Luxembourg and that made me think about sci fi books from this small European country that rarely gets mentioned outside of the Euro-vision competition. Anyway, upon googling Science Fiction authors from Luxembourg I discovered Hugo Gernsback is from Luxembourg! I don't even know who Hugo Gernsback is! Turns out the Hugo award for science fiction and fantasy books are named after HUGO Gernsback! I had assumed, wrongly, that they were named after Victor Hugo! So this was instantly ordered and not long after it was received in the post. When the book arrived I posted by assumption and discover of the book, authored by the award's namesake

The Netherlands - YLO - Nicholas Clare

Recieved!v This wasn't hunted out or gifted! The author hiimself saw a post on a Science Fiction Book club Facebook group we are both part of. I had posted about by search for books from around the world, and Nicholas let me know he is a Sci-Fi author from The Netherlands! BOOM a visit to his website and a couple of emails later I have a signed, first edition winging its way to be added to my collection!

This kind of interaction and making these contacts has been some of the most fun parts of this project. So this book is leap frogging other books straight to the top of the reading pile. A review will be coming as soon as I've read it!

Iceland - LoveStar - Andri Snær Magnason

This was a perfect holiday book, a week in the sun with the family. I managed to sneak a few hours of reading in each day and was engrossed in LOVESTAR. Some of the quoted praise for the book compared the author to Orwell, Vonnegut and Douglas Adams, which piqued my interest as they are some of my favourite authors. However, I think that was just some lazy reviewing. Don't get me wrong, the book is great and deals with a light-hearted weird dystopian future, buts that's where the comparisons end.

This does tick some of the boxes of the types of books I wanted to discover when setting out on reading books from authors from all around the world. It was originally written in Icelandic, set in Iceland and touches on Icelandic culture and history.

The story it's self has some pretty fun and slightly disturbing visions of the future. One thing that I didn't particularly like was the way it went to huge amounts of detail about how the technology in the future was developed. This is a personal preference and not a dig at the book. Im happy to accept technology. If I want to know more I'm sure there's a Wikipedia page about that piece of invented tech.

The book is a super easy read, nice and relaxed, with moments of comedy, and tragedy. The chapters were quite short which always encourages me to read more and more of the book as I always wanted to know what happened next. I wasn't too impressed with the ending of the book, as it seemed quite flawed, and wrapped things up a little too neatly. But again I quite like to finish a book thinking, 'but what about them?', or 'did they find what they were looking for?'

This book is probably aimed at a more general audience rather than just the science fiction audience.

Podcast link:

https://anchor.fm/andy-parry/episodes/SFATW---001---Iceland---LOVESTAR---Andri-Snr-Magnason-e20b9i0

Italy - Bug - Giacomo Sartori

This has been deliveried, and is top of my to be read pile

Finland - The Quantum Theif - Hannu Rajaniemi

Finland - The Quantum Theif - Hannu Rajanniemi

Or you can just listen to the podacast:

England - Speaking of Dinosaurs - Philip E. High

This book was part of a stash of 12 random books in the venture series I found in a charity shop. This had the most exciting sounding title, and had dinosaurs on in the title, so it got bumped up the to be read pile.

It doesn't really fit into my books from around the world project, but I'm blogging all the sci fi I'm reading on here too. So it gets added to the England list, maybe one day i'll try and read a book written by an author from every county in the UK, oh God! of course i'm going to do that. I've really enjoyed discovering new books and searching for book from around the world so now. i'm pretty sure i'm going to go back over my read pile and see which counties the authors were born in!

Anyway the book was really good, way better than I was expecting, I was thinking it would be pretty pulpy and trashy, but the ideas where really cool. I'm no expert on writing style or anything like that, but it was easy reading, with only a couple of plot holes and 'why would you do that!!?!?!?!?' moments but I would recommend this and may even read more of Philip E. High's work.

England - Step Forward Harry Salt - Ross Lowe

This book is set in my home county of Derbyshire in England, and published by a small independent company that set up shop in my home town (https://www.beardedbadgerpublishing.com/). Anyway enough trying to promote a mates publishing company, on with the book.

I wanted to love this book, and I had high hopes for it too, and the first few chapters were nicely odd, weird and engaging. As the book continued I got pretty hooked and was invested in Harry Salt's life and new adventure. The book took a nice twist about two thirds into the book, and settled nicely into the sci-fi genre. Weirdly as it started into sci-fi I found the book took on a very different feel, and just went a little childish and slightly slapstick. Look, I loved the book, the ideas, and the style of writing, and the connections to Derbyshire, i was just a little disappointed with the last third of the book.

England - Imagination Chamber - Philip Pulman

Russia - We - Yevgeny Zamyatin

Russia wasn't a hard country to find sci fi authors. And 'We' soon became a clear choice. I love brave new world and 1984, and this book is cited as being inspiration to both those books. Early into the book it became clear why. A classic dystopian future, of a working drone like population, lacking in empathy, morals and emotion. A bleak view of the future indeed.

The book it's self wasn't quite to my taste I'm not a fan of diary style books when the author talks directly to the reader. I find it breaks a little of facade and reminds you this is a work of fiction time and time again, and does encourage me to commit to the book and the story.

The ideas and the struggles in the book are really good though, and well thought out. But I just found this book dry and long winded, I just did care about the people, or their fate. Nice concept, thought provoking, but simply didn't engage with me.

Belgium - Where were you last Pluterday? - Paul Van Herck

Finding a Belgian sci fi author was pretty easy, Paul Van Herck's name just kept popping up. Getting a copy of Where were you last Pluterday was a little harder and fairly expensive! But about £18 and a few weeks later the book arrived on my doormat.

The book it's self is very funny and really weird. I mean sci fi is meant to be weird. But this is weird on scale usually reserved for hitch hikers guide to the galaxy.

Poland - Solaris - Stanislaw Lem

Stanislaw Lem is a pretty big hitter amongst the Sci-Fi writers, but someone I'd never read before, so i was pretty happy to get this book off the 'to be read' book pile and on the completed bookshelves. The book was pretty weird and dark and thought provoking, but i just found it really dry. So many chapters of pure description and very little plot just dragged and didn't draw me in.

The whole concept and philosophy of the book was great though. I think this may highlight my tendency towards more modern and contemporary sci-fi rather than the golden age of sci-fi and those authors and books who are considered 'classic'. Anyway, it has been read and enjoyed, I may go back to Lem for a different book.

Austria - The Orchid Cage - Herbert W. Franke

Finding an Austrian sci fi author was quite tricky, but managed to find Herbert W. Frank and sourced a second hand copy of the Orchid Cage. Once again, from the cover, title and blurb, it's not a book that I would have naturally been drawn too, and would have probably popped it back on the shelf.

The books starts off as a fairly intriguing sci fi adventure/exploration book. But soon gets weirder and weirder, with lots of rather unusual ideas, technologies and philosophies.

The book didn't draw on, or reference the authors Austrian heritage, and given its weirdness and uncompelling story I found it all a bit dry. Having read the book, I'm glad I've read it but it also confirms my awesome ability to judge a book by it's cover.

Wales - A week in future Wales - Islwyn Ffowc Elis

Wales - A week in Future Wales - Islwyn Ffowc Elis

This book massively ticked the boxes for why I was embarking on this project. A Welsh Sci Fi book, set in Wales, written in Welsh, by a Welsh author! Only recently translated into English (2021). So it was pretty good timing. The book itself is ok, but only just ok. It is a little too heavy on Welsh politics and economics and pretty light on science fiction.

Anyway it's another country ticked off.

France - Planet of the Apes - Pierre Boulle

This was kind of weird, i'm a huge fan of the original films, even though they did get kind of weird. I also really enjoyed the rebooted films too. I never even thought about the book that the films were based on. It was when I was researching books for my Sci-Fi from around the world project that someone suggested this book from a French author. I had no idea this was a book, and now I realise it's written by a French author. I ordered a copy straight away.

Annoyingly I had read a review about the twist at the end of the book not being the same as the film. So i was reading the last half of the book trying to predict the twist, luckily I was unsuccessful and had a nice surprise at the end. The book was really enjoyable and was great to go back and read the book that spawned so many films and generated such a cult following.

Podcast Link: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/andy-parry/episodes/SFATW---002---France---Planet-of-the-Apes---Pierre-Boulle-e21qqrs