I live in California. Ever since I saw this cool old Spanish-language movie wherein Santa Claus lived on the moon (and used a powerful telescope to keep track of who’s naughty and nice), I have had a special interest in science fiction as manifested in cultures other than my own.
I’m mostly looking for books translated into English here; although good movies with subtitles would be cool too. I have a particular interest in Middle Eastern SF.
Recommendations, please?
Novel - Roadside Picnic (there’s a new better translation that just came out)
Authors - Stanislaw Lem, Jorge Luis Borges
I’m on it! Thanks, jackdavinci!
Russia has a fine SF tradition, though I’m not deeply familiar with it. I’m a big fan of Sergei Lukyanenko’s Watches series, starting w/ Night Watch; it’s urban fantasy rather than SF, though. There’s also a couple of movies that were rather loosely based on the books; I like 'em, but mileage varies.
For SF proper… Zamyatin’s We is a classic from Soviet days. I fairly recently read Metro 2033, which was enough of a hit to spawn two video games; for me, the structure’s a bit odd, and I’m not entirely sure what I thought of it. But if you REALLY want weird, there’s Omon Ra, by Viktor Pelevin. I’ve an acquaintance who is something of a fan of his, and assures me they’re not all that weird, but… well, it was weird.
So,** jackdavinci**, we’re not talking about this one?
Thanks,** LawMonkey,** “Night Watch” sounds good. I am not averse to a little urban fantasy. In fact, while we’re on that topic, I’ll mention my very favorite UF books, Richard Kadrey’s Sandman Slim series. (thoroughly American, though!)
That is the one I was thinking of (yes two years ago I consider ‘just came out’ relative to when the older one first appeared lol).
It’s by an American (who spent time in Egypt) but you might also like Alif the Unseen for its Middle Eastern vibe…
There’s always Stanislaw Lem. His SF is far different from the western veasion.
Andreas Eschbach (Germam) wrote one of the best sf novels of the past 15 years in “The Carpet Makers.” It’s his only work translated into English and didn’lt sell well enough to merit more, but he’s quite successful in Europe.
There isn’lt very much SF in arab ountries. The genre just never developed. Someone (Fred Pohl?) once asked about it and was told there is only one future, so there’s no point in speculating about it.
Thank you,** Bosda Di’Chi of Tricor!** Those other two look great too!
No shit? Wow, that explains it. Perhaps that will change. Someone on these boards recommended the Budayeen books to me awhile back, and I loved them so much. Of course, that author wasn’t Middle Eastern either.
From another Argentine contemporary of Borges: The short novel The Invention of Morel by Adolfo Bioy Casares.
Recently caught a decent post-apoc movie on Netflix from Spain: Los Últimos Días, in English The Last Days which is (thankfully, for those of us who know no Spanish) is subtitled in English.
From the French, there’s the original novel La Planète des Singes by Pierre Boule, on which the first Planet of the Apes film was (loosely) based.
Another vote for Stanislaw Lem.
There’s also “Rossum’s Universal Robots” by Capek, originally written in Czech.
Would you count Jules Verne?
…a stupid question from me, but have you looked at Japanese science fiction? Akira—film, and comic—and Ghost in the Shell—comic, film, TV series, and novels—come to mind, immediately, and they hardly stand alone.
TV shows:
Charlie Jade
South African scifi/cyberpunk/apartheid fallout series. Has a Blade Runner type of vibe.
Here is a webpage about Islam and Science Fiction, which has many interesting articles
http://www.islamscifi.com
Here’s an article about the Islamic roots of scifi: The Islamic Roots Of Science Fiction