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...

By Péter MARTON ** Join the European Science Fiction group on Facebook for related discussions. ** Anita Moskát 's novel, "The Anchoring Place," shares its title – in my translation of the original Hungarian Horgonyhely – with Aleksei Bogolyubov's 19th century painting, used (with that excuse) as convenient illustration above. The two works do not have too much in common, though: for example, Moskát's novel doesn't have anything to do with Russia. But there certainly are steamers and anchoring places in it (unconnected to each other). The "anchoring places" play the key role: every person has one, right on the spot where one was born. Should one try to leave it (and its vicinity within a certain radius) behind, it won't work – it pulls one back, makes one physically ill. Fatally, even, if this is stretched to the limit. There is only one exception, one segment of the population that has freedom of movement: pregnant women. The ...

By Péter MARTON This essay argues that although there is a considerable body of European SF literature, there may be a need, with a view to contemporary world trends, for a more acute understanding of what it altogether represents in terms of implicit discourses and general character. And that to this end, it needs to be consciously and explicitly framed as "European," something that has not often been done in the past. *** In the popular understanding, science fiction often appears as a U.S.-based genre. No one necessarily thinks of it that way, yet that's how it appears according to key measures of impact. Ask fans of Science Fiction just about anywhere in comparatively open societies around the globe to list the names of the greatest SF writers in the world, and they will invariably drop mostly U.S. names. Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein, Frederik Pohl, Frank Herbert, Philip K. Dick, Theodore Sturgeon, Samuel Delany, Ursula K. Le Guin, Cordwainer Smith, Harl...