EUtopias and Other Futures: A European Journal of Science Fiction

By Péter MARTON ** Join the  European Science Fiction group  on Facebook for related discussions. ** 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 Kádá...

By Péter MARTON ** Join the  European Science Fiction group  on Facebook for related discussions. ** Published by Ad Astra (a Hungarian SF publishing house that operated from 2012 to 2018) as the third volume in a series of similar, thematically organised collections, this is a much weaker anthology of Hungarian authors' works than the one I wrote about here during the holidays. Whereas that one was world-class, this one feels more like the output of a distant colony of the SF universe... with due respect to some exceptions to this mentioned below. Even so, it is very interesting to read a volume like this, because the dividing line between good and bad is very strongly visible here (this also shows the importance of editing, I guess). Some authors just don't take what they write seriously enough and what they publish feels like they just wanted to get it over with, even if that took finding the cheapest, stupidest cliché one could think of in the given situation ...