Northern Ireland - Inish Carraig - Jo Zabedee

Looking at the cover of this book, and it's title and it's author. I would never have picked this out from a book shop. The cover is a little bleak and not the sort of artwork that would catch my eye. I only recently realised the cover is a picture of the famous Belfast port. The title didn't give a clue to the subject or theme of the book and I'd never heard of Jo Zabedee  before. So it's thanks to my undertaking of reading more from authors around the world that lead to multiple recommendations of this book. I enjoyed the book, and the final quarter of the book was much more tense and engaging.

Czech Republic - Rossum's Universal Robots - Karel Čapek

Technically this is a play, but it is a classic read, and the first use of the word 'robot'.

 

Germany - The Carpet Makers - Andreas Eschbach

 

This is another brilliant book I discovered whilst on this quest. When searching for German sci fi authors, this book just kept popping up. It sounded intriguing and I ordered a 2nd hand copy and forgot all about it. It must have taken 6 or 7 weeks to arrive and got added to my growing 'to read' pile next to my bed.

When I got round to starting it, the first couple of chapters had me hooked. This is a really great book and it just get more and more intriguing as it goes along. Each chapter seemed to add extra layers of weirdness and depth to the saga. The final chapters where just incredible to finally discover the reason behind these alien rituals and culture!

The book didn't have any clear links back to the authors German heritage, but who cares. This was a great find and one of my favourite books!

Scotland - The Player of Games - Iain M. Banks

When I went researching authors from Scotland Ian M. Banks' name kept coming up and had some amazing reviews for his 'culture' series. Player of Games was regularly recommended to me so I went for this book. Although the author is Scottish the book doesn't refer to Scotland or Celtish heritage, so it could have been an author from any country. 

But the book was a great read with lots of cool ideas and themes. I was a little disappointed with the way it ended. 

Sweden - The labyrinth - Simon Stålenhag

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Sweden - The electric state - Simon Stålenhag

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Sweden - Things from the flood - Simon Stålenhag

Sweden - Tales from the loop - Simon Stålenhag

England - The Hitch-hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams

It doesn't get more English that THHGTTG, with a dressing gown wearing, tea drinking, petty minded protagonist.

Everything about this book screams it's English heritage and culture. I'm a huge fan of Douglas Adams and the trilogy of five books that this grew into. This a funny book full of slapstick silliness, clever satire, puns, profanities, sarcasm and pretty much every type or humour going. The sci fi side of the book makes the perfect setting to marry so many ideas and thoughts and I LOVE IT!