Out This Month: August

“Sea of Fertility” by Bella Han, translated from the Chinese by the author (Clarkesworld, August 1)Yankees in Petrograd by Marietta S. Shaginyan, translated from the Russian by Jill Roese (MIT Press, August 19)

When a capitalist cabal plots to assassinate Lenin, can quick-witted American workers ride to the rescue before it’s too late?—a new translation. In Yankees in Petrograd, the Russian author Marietta S. Shaginyan (writing under the American nom de plume Jim Dollar) gives us a riveting crime and espionage adventure with science fiction elements. Despite having awesome technologies such as public transportation that bends space and time and electrical forcefields protecting Soviet Russia against its foes, the world’s first proletarian state is threatened by a fascist organization that will stop at nothing—including kidnapping, mesmerism, and infiltration—to assassinate Vladimir Lenin and his fellow Communist leaders! Enter Mike Thingsmaster, American tradesman and leader of a secret global organization defending the interests of the proletariat, who tasks his network with foiling this nefarious plot.