Ad Astra's Anthologies (review)
By Péter MARTON
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Having read this Hungarian anthology earlier on, the third in a three-part series of volumes published by Ad Astra, I felt obliged to check out what preceded it -- the "ante-logy" of this "antrilogy" (beg your pardon).
I went backwards chronologically, and -- just like the last time -- I will focus here on highlighting those stories that were good or decent enough that they would, in my view, deserve a wider audience. Measured this way, the first of the three volumes was the strongest. If I take into account those stories that almost made it, or had strengths as well as values, the first two volumes were both stronger than the third (which was the one I read first).
Overall, I'm glad to have found eleven stories to my liking in the overall antrilogy (5+3+3). It was certainly a good idea from the publisher and editors Sándor Szélesi and Zsolt Kádár to organise the individual volumes of the series around specific themes. The variation in quality across the volumes is shown, ironically, by how the first volume's stories focused much more on fitting the overarching concept (even though seemingly that is where the concept was the least concrete: "walls").
There is a lot of diversity in the stories, and I would not necessarily consider it fruitful to look for common themes. One thing that stood out somewhat is how several authors expect Hungary, public transportation and public health services to remain in a very poor condition even into the distant future. This is obviously different from the image of the future in works of Hungarian SF from decades ago, see here for example. That future seems gone, at least for some.
There is a lot of diversity in the stories, and I would not necessarily consider it fruitful to look for common themes. One thing that stood out somewhat is how several authors expect Hungary, public transportation and public health services to remain in a very poor condition even into the distant future. This is obviously different from the image of the future in works of Hungarian SF from decades ago, see here for example. That future seems gone, at least for some.
From "2045: Harminc év múlva" ("2045 - Thirty Years from Now;" Ad Astra, 2015)
Trenka, Csaba Gábor: Kisvárda sejkje (The Sheikh of Kisvárda)
No less than a masterpiece, and an alternative history at that. In a predominantly Muslim Hungary, perhaps because the Ottoman Empire stayed around for a little longer in this universe...? The characters are very down-to-earth, lifelike and intriguing at the same time. The plot brings up themes such as ignorance, incompetence and corruption with good humour, showing that this alternative possible world of a predominantly Muslim Hungary is only seemingly a very distant entity -- there is more resemblance than one might be forgiven for anticipating to the Hungary one finds in our present. At the same time, there is no shortage of literary values. I was reminded at some points of Khaled Hosseini's novels a little, and the ending was befitting of a ballad.
Kovács, Attila: Auditor Subliminalis
A clever little detective story situated in France, where a company is looking to market dual-use technology that can manipulate the sub-conscious... dual-use, because this can turn people on as well as down. I especially liked one of the dialogues midway through where machines altering human cognitive functions are discussed. Including the alarm clock and the coffee machine.
Crafty! Along with Attila Kovács's piece, this story reminded me of some of Will McIntosh's writing, to draw a distant parallel. The subconscious plays a part here, too. From fragments of the hi-tech bourgeois life of a man unwilling to commit to a relationship to the fragments of other lives from a narcotics-mediated, mysterious underworld, only for this to gradually start making sense in even the least likely aspects... and a world is built up in the process, well done.
Szélesi, Sándor: Holt idők, ha kísértenek (Ghosts of Long Past Times)
The title kinda tells it all, but the unsuspecting reader is led cunningly levels on down along a journey to the past as two detectives go underground in a case of arson. Well-paced, good atmosphere. And I like the ending... An empire is no joke until it's finished for good, this seems good advice!
Not a light theme by any means, but this is a light little piece about how technology closes us into bubbles (with an imaginative look at what some of the future technologies involved in this might look like) and how this may be bad, with the simple but important message that humanity will always await to be discovered beyond said bubbles.
This is again a strange animal from Csaba Királyházi, just like his previous piece which I wrote about here. I liked this one, too. A planetful of people in a domed city who really badly get into the habit of smoking. I repeat: in a domed city. It is a surreal story, it is funny, it even has suspense and action, and it also has critical and philosophical ideas, about how our habits can grow into addiction, walling us in, or how social norms are at times collectively reinforcing sources of harmful habits, making the unnatural seem natural to most.
Farkas, Balázs: Kamrák (Chambers)
Could make for a sitting-on-the-edge-of-your-seat pseudo-SF movie. Pseudo, because there is no real explanation provided for the otherwise fascinating dynamic driving the plot. For the lack of some such alibi, it counts technically as a weird tale, I guess, although who cares? It reflects well on the theme of the anthology as physical walls turn into mental/cognitive walls here. The story is really well-built up, in the form of fragments, which is not just an artsy solution but connects organically to what is being told.
Horváth, György: Prospektus (Prospectus)
The weirdest of all. Definitely not hard SF (just see what this story tells us about the birth of Luna, I mean, Earth's moon). A trippy-as-hell experience through the adventures of a dumb character who wouldn't go through all of this, were it not for his being somewhat dumb. I wonder what the author made of it, this being a story from 2014, when Hungary started building a wall along its southern frontier the next year (albeit one very different from the wall in the story, and for totally different reasons of course).
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