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...

Collage by yours truly: Portraits of Vladislav Surkov (top left and top right) + a portrait of Natan Dubovitsky (top middle) + screenshot of the source of the latter portrait, with the intro to Dubovitsky's short story By Péter MARTON ** Join the European Science Fiction group on Facebook for related discussions. ** A friend sent along the link to this short story , titled "Without Sky" or Без неба in Russian. The author is indicated as Natan Dubovitsky -- a pseudonym. Keep this in mind for now. The Wikipedia page on none other than Vladislav Surkov says that "journalists in Russia and abroad have speculated that Surkov writes under the pseudonym Natan Dubovitsky, although the Kremlin denies it." If I look at the above collage, with two of Surkov's publicly available portraits and the drawn portrait of Natan Dubovitsky (from the site where the short story in question was published), I probably don't need a forensic investigation of the st...

By Péter MARTON ** Join the European Science Fiction group on Facebook for related discussions. ** A collection of stories by established writers as well as other authors (the latter were selected on a competitive basis), this book is an exciting new development on the Hungarian SF scene. It comes edited by Csilla Kleinheincz and Gábor Roboz, published by GABO (Budapest, 2018). A strong anthology, albeit with mostly not "pure SF" for contents. One may thus complain about the cover, given that astronauts do not exactly play a central role, or any role for that matter, in about 95% of the stories featured here. That slight astro-naughtiness aside, however, it's quality stuff that you find here, most of the way. Moreover, with my broad understanding of the "science" in science fiction, the dominance of fantasy and slipstream across the volume should not be such a big issue after all. The book's overall design could be, seemingly, more of a...

By Péter MARTON ** Join the European Science Fiction group on Facebook for related discussions. ** The Terror is a TV series telling the unknown and creatively fictionalised story of Franklin's lost expedition (1845-1848). It is based on the novel of the same title by US author Dan Simmons. It is relevant for us here on the one hand due to where the expedition began... and for some more reasons I will reveal below. Two British ships, HMS Erebus and HMS Terror , set out from England to use Greenland as a springboard for the exploration of the Canadian Arctic. Their ultimate mission was to discover and chart the Northwest Passage. Ice doesn't help navigation - ice doesn't help life, either. They ended up stuck and starved. No one survived. See below the possible route they traveled. The wrecks of the two ships were found only as recently as 2014 (Erebus) and 2016 (Terror). The possible route of the Franklin expedition - by Hans van der Maarel As far a...

The cover of "The Mysterious Goat Buck" by Dezső Kemény By Péter MARTON ** Join the European Science Fiction group on Facebook for related discussions. ** Socialist Realist it ain't, but there's plenty of socialist reality in it. A key charm of the book. Like other readers before me, I couldn't resist this, either. "The Mysterious Goat Buck" is a collection of SF detective stories (a sub-genre in its own right). Unless exceptionally well-written, such stories can always feel a little mechanical, with a Big Revelation coming up at some point, towards the end, showing you that you were wrong all along. When combined with SF, the Big Revelation has also, by rule, to be connected to a Fantastic New Concept (FNCs, or "fancies" from hereon). The culprit behind the crime being investigated is one step ahead of everyone, with the exception of the smart detective, and is the master of a concept never before seen implemented. An innovat...

More on this book later – the last page held real treasure... By Péter MARTON ** Join the European Science Fiction group on Facebook for related discussions. ** I delved into Socialist-era Hungarian SF of late for some real adventure, and I'll have more to report to you about the experience in the coming days. For now... I will just share here what I found on the last page of the book above ( A titokzatos kecskebak or The Mysterious Goat Buck by Dezső Kemény, Budapest, Hungary: Móra Ferenc Könyvkiadó, 1970). It is an advertisement of the services of the State Insurance Company (Állami Biztosító). Whoever wrote the text was trying real hard to feel out the pulse of science fiction and combine it with the zeitgeist to achieve maximum promotion effect. You'll find the translation of the text below (and then I also add the original for proper documentation). Can you resist this? Don't even try. It may cause nervousness and feeling ill at ease. ...

By Péter MARTON ** Join the European Science Fiction group on Facebook for related discussions. ** If you are a member of the European Science Ficton group on Facebook, you must have seen me share a link there to this recently-published digital anthology earlier on. "Utópia 501" is a collection of texts from various Central and Eastern European authors, rather loosely organised around the apropos of Thomas More's Utopia , published 501 years ago at the time when the idea of this anthology was born (and 502 years before its actual publication this year). Hence the illustration above: the left side features the cover art of More's original work from 1516, and on the right you have the cover of Utópia 501 . What follows is a brief review and a way to highlight some of the pieces included in the volume. As to the concept of the collection: it's not bad – I'm happy to see any idea that may inspire a publisher in Central Europe to think of publishing t...

By Péter MARTON This is a moderately spoilered review of the Hungarian movie " Lajkó: Cigány az űrben " (in our own translation: Lajko: Gipsy in Space ). Head to the cinemas first if you would like to form your own opinion of it, before reading a critical evaluation like this. And in the meantime, spend a last second marvelling at the art on the packaging of my favourite Russian chocolate ("Cosmic Odyssey") above , which is only loosely related, as illustration, to the subject of this post. Still here? Then let's talk, firstly, about key terms – because some people may be hesitant to watch this film upon encountering its title. Some think that "Gipsy" as a term is offensive, and perhaps "Roma" should be preferred as an alternative. What one then needs to realise is that there is nothing inherently offensive about the word Gipsy, and yet neither of the above terms is really fully appropriate. At different points in time, they were e...