EUtopias and Other Futures: A European Journal of Science Fiction

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...

The cover of the Polish edition. By Péter MARTON ** Join the European Science Fiction group on Facebook for related discussions. ** "Extensa" is far future SF by Polish author Jacek Dukaj . It is well written, and may inspire a number of different interpretations, all of them interesting as potentialities -- I made up mine upon reading the book twice, to make sure I was not overlooking important clues. But there remain some puzzling aspects of the story as well as issues for ethical and philosophical debate even after this. Examples of these may be provided if along the way I also reflect on this other review of Dukaj's book by Luke Maciak . (This will come with spoilers, of course.) Jacek Dukaj, author of Extensa To start with, I'm not sure if it's good that the book has to be re-read to appreciate all the "clues" placed there, given that they only work as actual clues upon re-reading the text, when you know what to look for. There...

A bottle of mineral water By Péter MARTON ** Join the European Science Fiction group on Facebook for related discussions. ** At the risk of stating the obvious, you should read this review mostly only if you're familiar with the short story it is about. So this is where you can find the story , in the April 2017 issue of Clarkesworld . The author is Bogi Takács ( link to author page ) who describes oneself as "a Hungarian Jewish agender trans person and a resident alien in the US," and prefers to be referred to with the "e" personal pronoun in the third person. *** ¡El review! Sub-genre. This is far future SF. Key themes . Being left behind. Being used. Humanity regarding animals around them as somehow not "really" intelligent or sentient beings, using this as justification to do with them and with their environment whatever seems rational to them. With the coming effects of climate change looking rather nasty now , these ...