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Best Non English Language Sci-Fi Authors
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Jo
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Feb 26, 2014 09:32AM
I read a lot of sci-fi and mainly it is UK or US authors. For other types of book I read many more international authors, I like the different perspectives. Through the group I have read a few non English language authors: Yevgeny Zamyatin, Karel Čapek and Jules Verne. I'd like to know who are the best other non English Language authors. I know there is a separate thread for Russian authors and I have read quite a few of these but i'm really interested to know who else I should be reading so if you have any suggestions....
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I think the only foreign science fiction I've read is the Russian novel, Roadside Picnic which the film “Stalker" is based on. Have you read that? I've also read some Jules Verne, but that's about it.
I've read Roadside Picnic, it's nicely strange just like the film. There are some good Russian novels including Solaris which was also filmed by Tarkovsky.The only Jules Verne novel I have read is From the Earth to the Moon which we read here. I enjoyed it but not as much as some of the other books we've read but maybe it's not his best book. I should probably try one of the more well known ones.
I've only read 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea and Journey To The Centre of The Earth. I didn't like 20,000 leagues much as it lacked plot and dragged quite a bit. It was a while ago that I read Journey To The Centre but I remember really enjoying it. There's a good audio drama of it as well featuring music by Rick Wakeman from Yes.
Jo wrote: "I've read Roadside Picnic, it's nicely strange just like the film. There are some good Russian novels including Solaris which was also filmed by Tarkovsky.The only Jules Verne novel ..."
Solaris is actually written by Polish author Stanisław Lem, another great non-English sci-fi writer.
Matīss wrote: "Jo wrote: "I've read Roadside Picnic, it's nicely strange just like the film. There are some good Russian novels including Solaris which was also filmed by Tarkovsky.The only Jules V..."
Good point about him being Polish - I'm getting confused due to the Russian film. Anyway the book is excellent and I've just bought The Invincible to read next.
I just started The Silent City by French writer Elisabeth Vonarburg. So far it's quite good. I have the sequel to it In the Mother's Land and heard it's good too. I'm hoping to read Michael Jeury's Chronolysis soon too.We got a bit into this at the end of the Dhalgren discussion for some reason. I left a link there for Black Coat Press a publisher whose focus is Translating French genre fiction. They have a lot of titles to choose from. SF author, Brian Stableford, is on a mission to translate classic French proto science fiction. He seems to be doing about 3 books a month. A lot of the authors he's translating are contemporaries of Jules Verne. I haven't purchased anything from them yet, but I intend to. Their Ebooks are just $5.99.
Other than that, I've mostly been into old soviet SF, but I remember seeing a collection of Chinese SF suggested somewhere. Definitely have to check that out.
David wrote: "I just started The Silent City by French writer Elisabeth Vonarburg. So far it's quite good. I have the sequel to it In the Mother's Land and heard it's good too. I'm ..."If you have a link to the collection of Chinese SF i'd really like to see it.
Other than Jules Verne the only French Sci-fi i've read is Underground Man by Gabriel de Tarde. I looked at the link to Black Coat Press and there really is a lot of choice, I will have to look in more detail as I don't recognise many of the names.
I can't remember where I saw the Chinese SF anthology suggested. I can't find it on Amazon either. Maybe it wasn't even Chinese. Oh, well. Hopefully it'll pop up again. There was an older one that looked good on Amazon I may get.
I have just bought a Japanese SF anthology that looks pretty good, it's a mixture of Japanese authors and other authors with a connection to Japan The Future is Japanese: Science Fiction Futures and Brand New Fantasies from and about Japan. I have high hopes for this one.
Gary K. Wolfe reviews three translated books in his review column in the December 2014 issue of Locus. The first, The Three-Body Problem is the first of a trilogy by Chinese author, Cixin Liu. It sounds like an interesting book I may buy. The second sounds even better, The Blood Of Angels, by Johanna Sinisalo from Finland. It's about Colony Collapse Disorder, so I'm definitely buying this one. It's out in paperback. She's had a few other books translated into English and edited an anthology of Finnish fantasy The Dedalus Book of Finnish Fantasy.
The third is Peter Terrin's first novel translated from Dutch, The Guard. This one didn't interest me as much, but you may want to check it out.
David wrote: "Gary K. Wolfe reviews three translated books in his review column in the December 2014 issue of Locus. The first, The Three-Body Problem is the first of a trilogy by Chinese author, Cixin Liu. It s..."Thanks David. They all look good. I haven't read many Finnish authors, the only book I can think i've read is Lang by Kjell Westö(not sci-fi). I really should have read more considering it's a country I often visit so i'm quite tempted by the anthology.
A couple of Japanese things on my to-read list. Usurper of the Sun and Some Manga - Planetes, and Pluto.
At our monthly bookswappers this month we had a Hungarian sci-fi author Stephen Paul Thomas come to talk about his book which has just been translated into English Cluster, the first of a trilogy. He does everything as a project including the artwork and the illustrations for the books. The covers of the books are beautifully done. I've just started to read it so I can't yet comment on the content.
I've since read The Blood Of Angels. It was pretty good and gets a lot of points for covering such an important topic as colony collapse disorder.I bought The Three Body Problem, but haven't read it yet. It was just nominated for the Nebula Award, so I have high expectations for it.
David wrote: "I bought The Three Body Problem, but haven't read..."
It's also the group book next month so a good reason to read it.
I've started reading It Came from the North: An Anthology of Finnish Speculative Fiction which includes Johanna Sinisalo. The first story Hairball by Carita Forsgren is surreal and very amusing. Hopefully this is setting the standard for the rest of the book.
This looks like a good book if you want to try more world sci-fi:http://www.apexbookcompany.com/produc...
This is the fourth volume.
Not sure if he is going to be one of the best non-engish sci-fi authors but Vladimir Sorokin is coming to Brussels. I'd not hear of him before today but his book Ice Trilogy looks quite interesting, if not a bit bizarre.
Jo wrote: "Not sure if he is going to be one of the best non-engish sci-fi authors but Vladimir Sorokin is coming to Brussels. I'd not hear of him before today but his book [book:Ice Trilogy|87..."This looks very interesting. I'm going to have to get it. Thanks for posting!
I like Vasily Klyukin. I read his book Collective Mind on russian last month. Sure, you like it. It's all about AI
This is a good article on sci-fi anthologies from around the world. I've read the Finnish one which is speculative fiction and there are some good stories in it.http://www.tor.com/2016/08/09/ten-spe...
Jo wrote: "This is a good article on sci-fi anthologies from around the world. I've read the Finnish one which is speculative fiction and there are some good stories in it.http://www.tor.com/2016/08/09/ten-..."
Thanks for this, Jo. The Finnish one does look interesting, as does the Mexican - usually good for magical realism.
Rosemarie wrote: "The author I think of first is Yevgeny Zamyatin who wrote the novel We."I really liked We but it's the only one of his books i've read. I like Stanisław Lem and i'm currently reading Mortal Enginessome of his short stories. He has a fantastic imagination.
Stanislaw Lem is great, with weird imagination. Among Polish authors, not SF but fantasy I highly recommend Andrzej Sapkowski Witcher series.
The Glass Bees is by the same guy that wrote Storm of Steel. The latter was super. I'll have to see if I can find a copy of the former. I've never heard of Werfel. Looks like a brick, though.I read several of the Witcher books. They're very good. I've only read Solaris by Lem & wasn't impressed. I should probably try another. Translations can always be tricky.
JuniperGreen ~✰Knowledge is Sexy✰~ wrote: "Two early examples of German-language Science Fiction: Franz Werfel's Star of the Unborn and Ernst Jünger's The Glass Bees...."I had no idea that Franz Werfel wrote science fiction. I only knew him as the author of The Song of Bernadette. Too bad Star of the Unborn is out-of-print. I would have been curious to read it.
Jim wrote: "I've only read Solaris by Lem & wasn't impressed. I should probably try another. Translations can always be tricky."I'm crazy about Solaris. I think it's brilliant. But I know some readers don't like all the science. If you're going to give Lem a second chance, I recommend The Futurological Congress. It's hilarious. Much of the humor comes from the word play. I was constantly amazed that this is a work in translation.
Mod
I enjoyed The Carpet Makers a few years back. As you get toward the end, it starts to become unbelievable, but it is very interesting as it goes along toward that end.
Mod
Fantastic Planet and The temple of the past are available in English.
Recently, it looks like all of his novels are being adapted to graphic novels in France, and at least one of those, Niourk has been translated. I don't exactly recommend it, but it sure is weird, freely mixing SF and Fantasy and Super-hero ideas.
From my review "Starts out as a tale of a small band of people living in a hunter-gatherer tribe in post-apocalyptic Earth. Eventually the main character, a young boy, makes friends with a bear, eats brains of a giant radioactive squid, gets captured by humans who've come from Mars, clones himself, evolves into a superhero and moves the Earth out near Saturn! Pretty insane as a story, with too many ideas in too short a time, but the graphics are good."
Ed wrote: "Stefan Wul wrote about 7 SF/F novels in French in the late 1950's. I've long been interested in him because of the fantastically trippy animated film "Fantastic Planet". But his work is not generally easy to find in French and not much is translated to English...."I would love to get my hands on an English translation of Fantastic Planet. Unfortunately used copies on Amazon are $2000!!!
Abebooks as a copy for only $200 here:https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/Book...
I had to search by author & title, not just use the book link from GR. That searches via ISBN.
Jim wrote: "Abebooks as a copy for only $200 here:https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/Book......"
Still too rich for my blood. Maybe if Niourk sells well someone will decide to republish Fantastic Planet. From what I read about the Creation/Oneiros edition, it's a poor translation. Maybe we'll get a new translation.
Mod
Well, "Niourk" is a graphic novel version. The French publisher Ankama is doing French graphic novel versions of 4 or more of his books. Those might get translated, but there won't necessarily be any translations of the novels.
I'm actually very surprised that Niourk was translated. I can't imagine it will make much money.
Susan wrote: "From what I read about the Creation/Oneiros edition, it's a poor translation...."
You ain't just whistling Dixie! One hint to the poor quality is that the author's name is spelled wrong on the cover! (Stephan instead of Stefan.)
Creation books went out of business in sketchy circumstances. The co-owner fled to Bangkok. You can read a bit about it on "www.creationbooks.com".
I found a website that will sell you an epub version for $75. And also found a site called "fullenglishbooks dot com" that has the whole text online. Probably not legal. But better than paying up to $2000 for a used copy.
The text is very oddly formatted, almost as if a poem. Here is the first paragraph:
Quietly, the
Traag went near the window overlooking the nature room. Smiling, he watched his
daughter playing. She was a small and pretty Traag girl, with big red eyes, a
narrow nasal slit,
a
mobile mouth and, on either side
of her smooth skull, two eardrums so fine they appeared translucent.
I'm so glad her mouth was "mobile"! That probably makes it easier for her to eat!
Hi Ed. Apparently the book was translated with money-making as its sole objective. Books should be translated out of love of literature. Hopefully some SF fan who is fluent in French will treat us to a new and better edition.
Mod
Hard to tell. Maybe this guy was just in love with the book and wanted to translate it, but he is an amateur (in the English meaning of the word). The French word "mobile" when describing someone's face means something like "vibrant", or "changes expression frequently". Probably a better word could be found, but certainly not "mobile".
Even if a better translation comes out, probably better to stick with the film in this case.
The odd formatting seems to be due to the website fullenglishbooks which has formatting issues on other books as well. That seems a scam of some sort. They have books on there which are certainly still covered by copyright.
I checked and there were several books of Stefan Wul translated into Russian. The one I scanned thru a few pages, sounds a bit like Last and First Men by Olaf Stapledon
Mod
Over philosophical conversations about the nature of love, life and death, and the deliciousness of bacon, the [human and spider] form an intense and emotional bond.
Ed wrote: "I don't know how I heard of it, but I'm interested to read Czech novel Spaceman of Bohemia. "I ain't sure it can be called a Czech novel - it is originally published in English (i.e. not a translation), by the author, who was born and raised in Prague, Czech Republic, but immigrated to the United States at the age of fifteen. it is a little like calling Isaac Asimov a Russian author :)
Mod
I agree. I didn't know his history.
Mod
It includes authors who may be considered Speculative Fiction rather than Science Fiction proper, but that doesn't bother me. Anyway, I can pick and choose which stories to read.
Mod
Very cool! Reminds me of the art of Simon Stålenhag.
Gregg wrote: "It isn’t in English or words..."Wow! those are awesome. Thanks! The books are pricey, but on my wish list. Maybe the kids will chip in for my birthday next month.
:)
Here's an interesting column on Brazilian SF/F, about which I am completely ignorant: https://www.tor.com/2020/05/01/must-r...Sample:
Alexey Dodsworth Magnavita tells a story that summarizes the difficulties of Brazilian authors in this niche:
“By the time I released my first book, “18 de Escorpião” [18 Scorpii], I had won a prize. And a manager of a big bookstore in São Paulo called me saying ‘your books sell a lot and we wanted to make an event, a book launch party, and we saw that you are in São Paulo’.
So, I decided to go to the bookstore. When I arrived, he commented: ‘but you don’t have a foreign accent.’
To which I replied ‘no, I’m from Bahia’ [Bahia is a state in the northeast of Brazil].
‘But do you use a pseudonym?’ he asked.
I said ‘no, my name is really foreign, but I’m Brazilian’.
‘Ah, we thought you were a foreigner and we put your book in the international fiction and fantasy sector,’ he replied.
As a result, my book was changed from the foreign to the Brazilian book section and there was a drastic drop in sales!”.
Sadly, it looks like all the Brazilian books listed are available only in Portugese. Limiting their appeal to English-only readers... 😎
The Evolution of Science Fiction
Books mentioned in this topic
The Carpet Makers (other topics)The Hair-Carpet Weavers (other topics)
The Road to Science Fiction 6: Around the World (other topics)
Spaceman of Bohemia (other topics)
Spaceman of Bohemia (other topics)
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Authors mentioned in this topic
Andreas Eschbach (other topics)Simon Stålenhag (other topics)
Olaf Stapledon (other topics)
Stefan Wul (other topics)
Stefan Wul (other topics)
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