EUtopias and Other Futures: A European Journal of Science Fiction

The cover of the Polish edition. By Péter MARTON ** Join the European Science Fiction group on Facebook for related discussions. ** "Extensa" is far future SF by Polish author Jacek Dukaj . It is well written, and may inspire a number of different interpretations, all of them interesting as potentialities -- I made up mine upon reading the book twice, to make sure I was not overlooking important clues. But there remain some puzzling aspects of the story as well as issues for ethical and philosophical debate even after this. Examples of these may be provided if along the way I also reflect on this other review of Dukaj's book by Luke Maciak . (This will come with spoilers, of course.) Jacek Dukaj, author of Extensa To start with, I'm not sure if it's good that the book has to be re-read to appreciate all the "clues" placed there, given that they only work as actual clues upon re-reading the text, when you know what to look for. There&

A bottle of mineral water By Péter MARTON ** Join the European Science Fiction group on Facebook for related discussions. ** At the risk of stating the obvious, you should read this review mostly only if you're familiar with the short story it is about. So this is where you can find the story , in the April 2017 issue of Clarkesworld . The author is Bogi Takács ( link to author page ) who describes oneself as "a Hungarian Jewish agender trans person and a resident alien in the US," and prefers to be referred to with the "e" personal pronoun in the third person. *** ¡El review! Sub-genre. This is far future SF. Key themes . Being left behind. Being used. Humanity regarding animals around them as somehow not "really" intelligent or sentient beings, using this as justification to do with them and with their environment whatever seems rational to them. With the coming effects of climate change looking rather nasty now , these

By Péter MARTON ** Join the European Science Fiction group on Facebook for related discussions. ** This. Is. Military. SF.  If you don't know what that's supposed to mean, feel free to quit. You can quit any time. Don't like it here? Not your genre? Go home. Why wait? Why turn even one more page? You still here?  If you're still here, it seems like you may, just possibly, be ready for this. You may even enjoy the ride. You might get an unhealthy amount of enjoyment out of it, in fact. Reading "Terms of Enlistment," you will naturally enjoy when shit blows up from time to time get that strange feeling of déja lu ("already read," that is), because of course you have: in Starship Troopers , by Robert Heinlein. The similarity is in the most positive sense. It is a cozy familiarity with some of what's going down that immediately works to suck you into the story, even though there are also some important differences compared to th

By Péter MARTON ** Join the European Science Fiction group on Facebook for related discussions. ** What you get here: three reasons why Venom may be worth seeing, spoiler-free. Plus, after those three points, some observations about the plot (those are not spolier-free). 1. Hardly enough in and of itself, but still... Hardy! This is not a European movie. It doesn't even have European settings (the plot starts off in space, Malaysia is implicated, and then we're off to San Francisco and the Bay Area). But it has Tom Hardy, one of our own, I mean, speaking from the point of view of a good European patriot... Hardy didn't stay put in Europe for too long in his life, of course. He made his leap into the big unknown at just about the right time. He abandoned his studies at the Drama Centre at University of the Arts London because he was given the chance to play in Black Hawk Down . He had his ups and downs since, some of them self-made, but