Showing posts with label Europe. Show all posts

Switzerland -

20th October 2025

Book arrived

Spain - Natural Consequences - Elia-Barceló

8th October 2025:
Found whilst updating the blog on my book from Catalonia, and debating with myself whether or not to split Catalonia and Spain into separate countries. I did, as this book looks great.

16th October 2025:

The book arrived.

North Macedonia - The Veil - Ivan Stojanovski

11th September 2025:

How I found the book:

I Googled "north Macedonian science fiction authors" and found The Veil by Ivan Stojanovski. The reason I chose North Macedonia, is because; a, it's not been ticked off yet and, b, because we adopted our dog from North Macedonia. I've said North Macedonia four times now which is quite a mouthful.

The Physical Book:

Clearly self published and probably using the cheapest possible options. The book looks like a text book as it's an A4 sized paperback with no decernable cover design. Again probably the cheapest option. There no publisher information, no copyright information, no blurb, no forward (don't read them very often anyway). Just an ISBN and then the book starts on Page 2. I guess this comes under physical attributes. But the book is riddled with spelling mistakes, grammatical errors. Weird and massively inconsistent uses of breaks, line spacing, indentations. Every page has at least one of these errors. This book has never been proof read by a native English person. I can only assume it was written in English as there isnt any credited with translation the work. And even a basic online translator wouldnt result in so many spelling errors!

I had to stop reading the book after 100 pages. The errors are so distracting and annoying I just couldnt get into a flow, despite many attempts. I'm not particularly good at spelling or the technical aspects of English writing. So there will be so much my basic knowledge didn't even spot. I will come back to the book just taking a break with a couple of other well written books before picking this up again.

Norway - The History of Bees - Maja Lunde

3rd Sept 2025:

Found this

https://www.waterstones.com/book/the-history-of-bees/maja-lunde/9781471162770

I have a feeling i've read The morning Star by a Norweigian author, but it didn't have a sci fi feel to it.... this doesn't have much of a sci fi feel either, but its slips into the dystopian sub category, and looks into the future also! so its is a bit of a tick. not a solid marker pen TICK, just a pencil tick.

10th Sept 2025:
Purchased a second hand copy arrived today! I realised I hadn't read The Morning Star, but I had listened to the audio book, the book was ok, but not much happened, it was super weird and creepy. Just as it was getting going the book ended. Their is a sequal, or maybe a prequal. But i'm probably not going to bother with them. So I'm quite looking forward to The History of Bees.

Slovakia - The Man who saw Seconds - Alexander Boldizar Slovakia

Slovakia - The Man who saw Seconds - Alexander Boldizar

How I found the book:

The podcast is listed on some database somewhere, so i occasionaly get emails from people promoting their books. A lot of the time they are American authors so I don't it any further and turn down their offers of promotional digital copies. The email from Alexander was interesting so i returned the email with some information about the project I'm doing, and he told me he was born in Slovakia! Win!. I've already covered Slovakia with The Science of the Stars by Gustav Reuss. Technically Gustav Reuss was born in Czechoslovakia, back when the Czech Republic and Slovakia where still a unified country. Alexander was kind enough to give me a free audio copy of the book. I was totally stoked to recieve a free book for this project, but i promise that won't alter my views on the book. Also as part of this project i'm also building a physical library of the books i'm reading, so I purchased a physical copy also.

The physical book:

Its a good looking book, pretty old school and simplistic artwork, nothing that would jump out at me, but it's a pretty little book.

The Story:

Its a super cool concept, basically the lead guy can see about 10 seconds into the future, which means he makes his money gambling. He's trying to lead a normal life and not let on to anyone his power. Things kick off when he's stopped on the train by a transit cop. The cop ends up injured and the local police then join in the man hunt. Due to our heros ability he can dodge bullets and is an incredible marksman. which means he never makes a deadly shot and remains unscathed.

The man hunt escolates and. infact we end up in a nuclear stand off with assured mutual destruction on the cards that woud effect 90% of the world!

How Slovakian:

After an email conversation with the author, and reading another blog interview about his work. This is very much inspired by the Eastern block, communism, and all those freedom fighters, cynics, and silent heroes that resisted the 'Man'

Would I reccomend?

Yeah, it's am action packed book. It's great fun. There a good bit of science in the middle all about cognition, and sonsory perception was was facsinating, but felt a bit out of place, or maybe just toooooo much science. Dunno, i'm not an editor.

Hungary - Metropole - Ferenc Karinthy

How I found the book:

Just googling Hungarian science fiction authors. Can't remember why I pick Hungary to Google, probably because I visited Budapest 12 or 13 years ago with my other half for Christmas and had a lovely time, and because I'm focused more on ticking off all the European countries at the moment. Metropole kept popping up and if got a mixed bag of reviews but it was a pretty popular book so I got a 2 d hand copy online.

The physical book:

Standard paperback, ok quality, the cover was fairly uninspired. Not something that would have lept out and shouted "read me!"

The story:

I had fairly low expectations for the book, it was an Eastern European dystopian story with dull looking cover. This smacked of a being a bit of a slog, especially as I was reading this straight after reading the beautifully luxurious Red Sword.

But i was wrong, I couldn't put this book down and I'm not quite sure why. Their wasn't much of a story, nothing was really happening. But I was hooked into following the story of this man who got on the wrong plane ended up in a mega busy city, not understanding the language, and just pottering around trying to understand where he is and how to get home. The book is so engaging, I just wanted to know more and more, and how he was going to decipher his predicament.

He does get involved in small scale capers, with the lift operator, visits a church, a prostitute, and an abbatoir. They were all weird little side stories, very surreal but believable and totally alien to him and any travel experience I've had.

The second half of the book builds in intensity, weirdness and excitement. Our hero gets kicked out of his hotel, becomes a homeless vagrant, and manages to get involved in some sort of city military coup that last one day, and is completely tidied away and swept under the carpet the next day!

As the book got closer and closer to the end I tried to predict the ending and within the final few pages their was a soft ending which I was fairly happy with, but if you want to find out, then read it for yourself.

Conclusion:

I really enjoyed this book and read it at every possible opportunity until I finished it. I really enjoyed the mystery and weirdness off the city he found himself in, and really enjoyed the in-depth introspective conversations on language history and evolution. I was put off by sex and beating scene, and found that uncomfortable and wish it hadn't been in the book.

I would recommend this book, it's weird, a completely different look at dystopia. Not massively 'sci fi' but a great rrad i would happily loan out to my science fiction friends and any one who likes to read something I usual.

Book history

-Need to reseach

Estonia - The Man who spoke Snakish - Andrus Kivirähk

another find whilst do a bit of a research session.

Looks a lot more like fantasy or folk lore rather than Sci Fi

Ukraine - Elana Gomel - The Crytids

28th Jan 2025:

Found this:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0C91X3GLB/?coliid=I20ZUCDU9A2AQ7&colid=34JE9HFDP3DZ3&psc=1&ref_=list_c_wl_lv_ov_lig_dp_it_im

not purchased it yet still doing research on Ukraine

7th Sept 2025:

Also found this:
The Iron Garden Sutra by A.D. Sui but its not out until 2026
https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/_/BOdfEQAAQBAJ?hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjmwLOGnaaPAxVY0AIHHXD_KJUQ7_IDegQIERAC

And this

https://www.abebooks.co.uk/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=31685376079

Self-Discovery by Vladimir Savchenko

Out of the above three titles i'm most drawn to Self discovery as i'm a sucker for a bit of old school science fiction. Althou The Iron Garden Sutra sounds the most 'Sci Fi' but I have to wait. I'll probably won't have cleared my To Be Read pile by 2026, so i can wait for The Iron Garden Sutra.

Spain (Catalonia) - Typescript of the Second Origin - Manuel de Pedrolo

23rd June 2024

Found with a bit of googling and reading this article:

http://www.concatenation.org/europe/spanish_science_fiction.html

and ordered a copy of Typescript of the Second Origin by Manuel de Pedrolo.

8th October 2025:
Finally got round to starting this book, I was reading 'The Veil' from North Macedonia but it was such a slog to get through I needed a break from it. I wasn't sure that book to pick as my 'to read' pile is pretty healthy looking at the moment. But this was the only paper back on the list, so this was picked as I had an hour wait while my daughter was at her therapy session. I haven't split Catalonia from Spain yet, but if I find another Spanish science fiction author, I may end up splitting out Catalonia, as this is recognised as a Catalonian book, by a Catalonian author written in originally in the Catalan language. So I've learnt a fair amount from the forward and the translators notes, and some random stuff from Wikipedia too.

So after a bunch of googling and reading an article on Clark's world magazine about Spanish Science Fiction, I didn't find too much, so I reverted back to one of my absolute gold mines for finding books which is THE BIG SPREADSHEET on Rachel Corasco's amazing website. and found Natural Consequences by Elia-Barceló, who was born in Elda, Spain; which is not part of Catalonia. So it looks like my project just got one book bigger!

The physical book:

Meh, it's an average looking book, nothing to catch the eye, the title is long winded and not that attention grabbing either, its fairly short at only 160 pages, so should be a fairly quick read.

The Story:

Ok so, it's not super sci fi, I'm going to go full spoilers. The sci element is basically aliens kill all the humans apart a tiny amount who where missed because they were underwater. All buildings are partially destroyed. An alien is, presumed, stranded on the planet and killed by the two protagonists. Oh, the final chapter is set seven thousand years after the main story is played out, and discusses the 'typescript' that was found. And it discusses if the protagonists were the Adam and Eve of their civilization, and that are yet to discover the Alien race. So that covers all the science fiction in the book.

The story focuses on a young girl called Alba and a young boy named Dilac who are 15 and 11. They survive the alien invasion, and it's a really heart warming and fairly slow story around their adventures of becoming sustainable, traveling, and dealing with being alone. Thinking back, not much really happens, but I became completely engrossed and invested in their growing relationship and love. It's really well written and flows wonderfully. I can see why this book is required reading in Catalonian schools, and also quite surprised, as the Catalan region is very religious, and this didn't really touch on God's intervention or lack of it.

How Catalonian:

I did a bit of research on the book. And their is a HUGE amount of discussion on this book, which I didn't want to read, as I enjoyed the book for what it was. And didn't need to rethink it all with a whole heap of academic analysis, but it is their if you want it. The book is set in the Catalan region, and the geography and nature of the place is completely embedded into the story, so Si, it is mucho Catalan.

Recommend:

Yes a great story, not very sci fi but thoroughly enjoyable.

Portugal - Blindness - José Saramago

This book was recommended to me by Seth Heasley who hosts two great podcasts; Take me to your reader and Hugos There. So a huge thanks to Seth.

I ordered a copy from my local bookstore, Dormouse Books in Belper, which came an a couple of days.

I had only briefly researched Portuguese science fiction, and found a short story published online, but not found this, and there may a reason for this which i'll talk about later.

The book started off really strong with a very descriptive scene of a man loosing his sight whilst waiting at traffic lights in his car. from the first scene and the first few pages it had me hooked and it had a very similar feel to the Brazilian book I read called: and still the earth. I am never very ken on comparing books, but there was just a familiar feel to them both. Maybe its a language thing, maybe a cultural thing, or maybe just pure coincidence.

The book was such a bleak story of a blindness pandemic, and the book followed the lives of a small group of people in a detention / quarantine center. The book was graphic and pretty disturbing in places, but the sense of bleakness and failure of morality and disintegration of basic human kindness was chilling, mainly because it seemed really quite realistic.

There were some points in the book, where it seemed unrealistic, but maybe that was my lack of empathy with the characters. One of the oddest thing about the whole story was that the names of the characters were never disclossed, it was always; 'the doctor, or ;the lady with the glasses'. This was very odd to start with, but I soon got used to it. During the story, it was commented that blind people don't need names.

Overall a great book, not sure that it is science fiction, it is dystopian, and the reason for the contagious blindness isn't explained. So, to me, this is right on the border of what i would consider science fiction

Slovakia - The Science of the Stars - Gustav Reuss

Malta - Lucifer's Dragon - Jon Courtenay Grimwood

I googled Malta Science Fiction, after finding out one of my customers spent a lot of her childhood in Malta, as her father was posted their with the British Army. Grimwood was the only science fiction author I found that was born in Malta. So this was a lucky find

Found a copy of the book of Amazon for £3.50 so that was a nice win, and despite my dislike of Amazon it was the easiest and cheapest option..I know you should never judge a book by its cover. But the cover of this book is appalling. Its the the kind of cover I would pass over straight away. BRIGHT orange with green text boxes. Really didn't give off a science fiction vibe. And the name also, 'Lucifer's Dragon', it sounds like a fantasy book, and i'm not really a fan of fantasy book. But i do absolutely love a Song of Fire and Ice series of book. So this book sat on my shelf for a long time and other books over took it on my To Be Read pile. But i finally got round to opening it up and I've found quite enjoyable

Republic of Ireland - The Cloud of Desolation - Sam Baneham

So my history with this book is a pretty good story. After reaching out to a guy called Damo, on the science fiction book club FaceBook group asking him about Irish Science fiction from the Republic of Ireland. Damo came back recommending Cloud of Desolation, but warned me it was a very rare and therefore pretty expensive book. This project has taught me that searching for books all over the internet is quite good fun and i'm getting pretty good at it. Damo was super generous and offered to lend me a copy of his book, but i also really like collecting physical copies of the books for this project too.

I eventually found a copy in a small 2nd hand online bookshop based in Ireland, so I purchased a copy from them. The owner was super friendly and sent me a few emails about delivery times and prices. The book went past its due date by a week or so, so I emailed the book store owner, who was very apologetic and went on a mission to kick the couriers ass and get the book into my hands. The owner did the job and book arrived a couple of weeks later on the 11th Aug 2023.

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