EUtopias and Other Futures: A European Journal of Science Fiction

See what I did there? By Péter MARTON ** Join the European Science Fiction group on Facebook for related discussions. ** More reviews will ultimately follow -- Sam Miller's Calved and Transmissions by John Bonello are in the pipe. For now, just a brief mission statement. I am reviewing here mostly either pure science fiction or works that contain pure science fiction as a key element beside other things. I am aware of the term "speculative fiction" and how it conveniently encompasses both fantasy and science fiction; very conveniently indeed from a publisher's perspective, given that audiences of the two genres significantly overlap. To me, however, vampires, demons, dragons and fairies being involved is fantasy but not necessarily speculative fiction to any extent. I like to read speculative fiction, rather than just pure science fiction, exactly for the reason that there is not necessarily a major difference between the two. What I mean by this ...

By Péter MARTON ** Join the European Science Fiction group on Facebook for related discussions. ** What you get here: three reasons why Venom may be worth seeing, spoiler-free. Plus, after those three points, some observations about the plot (those are not spolier-free). 1. Hardly enough in and of itself, but still... Hardy! This is not a European movie. It doesn't even have European settings (the plot starts off in space, Malaysia is implicated, and then we're off to San Francisco and the Bay Area). But it has Tom Hardy, one of our own, I mean, speaking from the point of view of a good European patriot... Hardy didn't stay put in Europe for too long in his life, of course. He made his leap into the big unknown at just about the right time. He abandoned his studies at the Drama Centre at University of the Arts London because he was given the chance to play in Black Hawk Down . He had his ups and downs since, some of them self-made, but ...

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...

A mural in Kyiv, Ukraine (the author's photo, 2016) By Péter MARTON ** Join the European Science Fiction group on Facebook for related discussions. ** Those following this blog will already know that I'm a fan of Yuriy Shcherbak – I praised him both as a writer and as a person (due to his parallel careers as epidemiologist scholar and writer, which he topped off with a role in politics and diplomacy in post-Soviet independent Ukraine).  It would be a let-down if I wouldn't write here about one of his best-known works, "The Chronicle of Yaropol Town" ( Хроніка міста Ярополя in Ukrainian). This was written after Quarantine , and takes Shcherbak and us way outside the world of the science lab. It is not genre stuff ( Quarantine wasn't that, either, of course), but it contains fantastic as well as SF elements. Shcherbak shows much technical skill here again in the sense of building complex and nicely written text, but apart from this his w...

By Péter MARTON ** Join the European Science Fiction group on Facebook for related discussions. ** "Quarantine" ( Карантин in Ukrainian and Russian), a 1966 novelette by Yuriy Shcherbak, may be well worth a read even today. In this brief review I will give you a few good reasons for this, bullet point by bullet point, to keep my thoughts super-organised. Shcherbak is originally an epidemiologist, and as such he is the author or co-author of many scholarly papers.* Given this, when it comes to dealing with the medical and technological details of a story that begins with an incident in an early-era biosafety lab, it's like a walk in the park for him – he pulls it off without effort. He is also a pretty good writer, good at drawing characters, and providing insights about their merits and into their motives, simply by showing their actions and interactions unfold. In Quarantine , he is able to present a silent hero of humanism in chief researcher Balandin w...

By Péter MARTON ** Join the European Science Fiction group on Facebook for related discussions. ** Used as illustration above is a detail of Anton Semenov's cover art for the 2012 album " Army of Mushrooms " by Infected Mushroom, a psychedelic musical duo from Israel. Bo Balder's story strongly reminded me of it, hence its inclusion here... Speaking of infections: before we delve into Balder's work, the very first story reviewed here in our series, imagine the following scenario. It will be worth it, the detour... We are in a small village in the Democratic Republic of Nowhere. A small team of medical personnel and members of what passes for the "local" police force (ordered in from a town fifty kilometres away) approach a house where several sick patients are thought to be suffering from hemorrhagic fever. Those who feel healthy are ordered to come out. Those who are sick at bed should stay inside, they are told. The medical team moves...

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...

This community blogzine will cover Europe and Europeans in Science Fiction. (Belated exclamation mark! In brackets!) Explanation "Europeans" may imply European authors as well as European characters. We are equally interested in what European authors have to say, and what happens, individually or collectively, to Europeans in science fiction. And in what happens there to Europe, for that matter. Science fiction is understood here in a broad sense, in overlap with other genres, and at times presenting itself as something different but in reality containing some kind of SF element. Find a longer explanation of our raison d'être here . Forms in which we welcome contributions Short essays , in up to 1,000 words, about all that is mentioned above, under "Explanation."  They should all set out to answer clear questions, or have a clear focus. Please consider arranging proof-reading by a native English speaker before submitting text as our language-edi...