EUtopias and Other Futures: A European Journal of Science Fiction

Scene from Pervye na Lune (First on the Moon) By Péter MARTON Just a quick piece on mockumentaries. I recently had the chance to watch two such films and it may be good to pass the information on in case you might have an interest in tracking them down, especially if you're a fan of the (sub)genre. One is Trollhunter , a Norwegian movie from 2010, described as dark fantasy by some, written and directed by André Øvredal. The other is Pervye na Lune/First on the Moon ( Первые на Луне ) from 2005, directed by Alex Fedorchenko -- an alternative history piece. Both films focus on conspiracies of different sorts: a benevolent one in the case of Norway where the conspiracy is keeping people protected, and a cynical one in the case of Russia where the mockumentary mentions even one of the interviewees appearing in it as having disappeared during the shooting of the documentary. (A documentary about a supposedly long-past event, at that, which was probably a way for the fi...

The main message. By Péter MARTON ** Join the  European Science Fiction group  on Facebook for related discussions. ** The idea behind this post is simple. I am re-reading The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy , the full series, novel(ette) by novel(ette). Again. Not for the first time. As I do this, I will write down a few reflections on what stands out for me now, after so much time since the publication of the story has passed (40 years! OMG!), and after so much time since even Douglas Adams' passing away has passed (since 2001, that is). I read HG2G such a long time ago for the first time myself that... it's seriously a lot of water under the bridge since then... and if I continue like this, it will be a lot of water under the bridge before this paragraph ends. So I'll stop here. The most important quantity is 42, anyways. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1979) The very fruitful marriage of absurdism and science-fiction. From the lonely,...

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...

Underground springwater reservoir beneath Mount Gellért in Budapest, the author's photo (2018) By Péter MARTON ** Join the European Science Fiction group on Facebook for related discussions. ** Seeing my reviews full of praise for writers like Bo Balder , Anita Moskát or Yuriy Shcherbak you may wonder: Can this guy bite? Does he have the guts to write something really critical for a review? Well, the wondering ends today... This will be a takedown. "Lovely," "lyrical," "beautiful," etc. These are the adjectives I've typically heard from people describing how Finnish author Emmi Itäranta's book is written. They had less to say about its substance. Now, I'm really not hard put to suspend disbelief for the sake of a good story. I like to enjoy literary values independently of plausibility issues. For a recent and good example of when I benefited from this, take Emily St. John Mandel's Station Eleven , another dystop...