Books tagged with: translation

Agustin de Rojas was a Cuban author of science fiction. Within that country he is thought of as a legend and has even been described as "Patron Saint of Cuban science fiction". Agustin wrote A Legend of the future back in 1985, following his award winning novel Espiral (Spiral). El año 200 (The Year...

Yoss is one of the most controversial and successful of Cuba's science fiction writers. As well known for his rock-and-roll style as he is for his portrait of Cuba under Communism, his work is modern, dynamic and yet deep and thoughtful. A Planet for Rent is set in the near future where Earth, wrack...

In Denmark there is a thriving science fiction subculture with many short stories being written every year. Since 2007 the Danish science fiction association (Science Fiction Cirklen) has published an annual anthology of a selection of these original stories, written by Danish authors. For the very...

The Three-body Problem was originally written in Chinese by Liu Cixin. Launched to great acclaim within China, it became one of the most popular science fiction novels within the country and won the 2006 Chinese Science Fiction Galaxy Award. Thankfully it has now been translated by the talented auth...

There is a much bigger speculative fiction scene within China than most people realise. The main barrier to these stories for the western reader is of course language. It's wonderful to see writers such as Ken Liu translating important Chinese works so that a wider audience can begin to enjoy this r...

Cixin Lui writes incredibly imaginative fiction, exploring vast ideas and bringing them down to a human level. His Remembrance of Earth's Past series has won awards and brought much deserved recognition, with the first in the series The Three Body Problem even becoming a favourite of Barack Obama. B...

What makes a great trilogy? Three stories that combine to make one, but are themselves also valid. Each book should have a start, middle and end that combine together to make a longer narrative. There are not many things worse for a fantasy or science fiction reader than getting their hands on a ‘fi...

For those who haven't heard of him, Yoss is a Cuban science fiction author. He's one of Cuba's most iconic figures in literature, having written over twenty books so far, run science fiction workshops and even found time to be the lead singer of Heavy Metal band Tenaz. Red Dust (translated from Span...

Over the next three days, three reviews will stand before you. Read them in any order, some elements will be the same, others  quite different . If you  would like to go straight to the segment   unique to this  review , please start with paragraph 4.   Drafting  a book  must be like standing in fro...

Over the next three days, three reviews will stand before you. Read them in any order, some elements will be the same, others quite different. If you would like to go straight to the segment unique to this review, please start with paragraph 4.   Drafting a book must be like standing in front of a s...

I love genre fiction that deals with people who have developed superpowers;  X-Men ,  The 4400 ,  The Boys . All of them have ordinary people gaining extraordinary powers. Some become superheroes, other supervillains. However, what about those mutations that are a little naff? Do you deserve to be s...

There seems to be a bit of an explosion of time travel novels in the last few years, some even flying under the radar of being labelled "science fiction" - so that people who only read "serious fiction" can be entertained too I guess. Before the coffee gets cold , the first in a series, initially se...

Writing a futuristic science fiction novel will allow you to explore strange new worlds but can also be used to explore our past and culture. Reading a wide range of stories from different people, from different parts of the world is a gift that will keep giving your entire life. There has been a lo...

Like many science fiction fans, I have been swept away by the recent influx of Chinese writers that have been translated. Many of these writers are only new to us but have established careers back in China. The most prominent is the Hugo Award winning Cixin Liu. I have enjoyed the style of stories f...

What if your physical body were no longer a lifelong commitment? What if we could, instead, free ourselves from that mortal constraint and simply inhabit the hardware you happened to be running at the time? This is the central question at the heart of Francesco Verso’s The Roamers , a novel of ideas...

There are books in a person’s life that helps to define their taste in genres. I was lucky enough in my teenage years to work my way through some of the classics of science fiction instilling a lifelong love of the genre. One novel that stands out among the best was Ray Bradbury’s The Illustrated Ma...

Starting a new book can always be daunting, but I have a special trepidation for short story collections. They can be vast, full of stories that are loosely linked. Trying to find themes and remember all the stories can feel impossible when considering a review. However, you sometimes get a more cur...