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.

The Physical Book:

The book cover is a little dull, not really telling you anything about the contents of the book. But that's fine, it's a well put together book with a nice feel and a good flexible spine. It's only short book with a touch over 180 pages. A nice few introductions by the translators and by the author also.

16th Feb 2026:

Bought the book on a family holiday. And I'm ripping through it at a super fast pace. Absolutely loving the book. I'm not a complete prude, but I do feel uncomfortable with sex scenes, and this book pretty much opens with a human male becoming the first man to have sex with an alien female. usually this sort of action is a side line in a book, but this book takes that action and plays it out to an entire book that unfolds and takes some incredible twists. Essentially the female alien impregnates the male human, and then we follow the inter galactic diplomatic and consequences. This is a very funny and insightful book. The author is a self proclaim feminist and it shows in the story, with gender role reversals at a personal and historic level.

I would recommend this book, because it is so playful and well executed. There was a bit of a dry spell, when two aliens got into a lengthy discussion on their own planet's gender history and ensuing political framework. But other than those few pages, it was a super lighthearted and fun read

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 civilisation, 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, travelling, 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 out there 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 science fiction but thoroughly enjoyable.