Greg Egan would be the pick of Australian science fiction
Heart of a Dog is a Russian book about a scientist who transplants the pituitary and testes of a criminal into a dog, who then becomes a selfish petty bureaucrat. There was a Soviet-era TV movie based on the book.
Haikasoru Books specialize in translated Japanese science fiction books (not manga but prose novels); the best-known one now is All You Need Is Kill, better known as The Edge of Tomorrow after the movie that was made from it.
Since you mentioned a movie in the OP, I assume you’re not just after novels - a lot of good European SF can be in the form of comics - so Mœbius and Jodorowsky’s The Incal, or the latter’s related Metabarons. Some of Hergé’s Tintin comics are SF.
South Africa doesn’t really do much SF, and when we do, it’s of a decidedly Western bent - even the aforementioned Charlie Jade is a Canadian co-production. District 9 was a good SA-based and influenced movie. Lauren Beukeswrites award-winning SF that is sometimes very much South African (Moxyland, Zoo City) and other times, not so much (Shining Girls, the other new one I haven’t read yet.)
René Laloux made three animated French scifi movies(Fantastic Planet is one of my all time favorite movies) and the latter two show obvious influence in the art from French scifi comics. All three are excellent and highly recommended, FP has an amazing and unique animation style as well.
Another French piece:
The non-English-language science fiction that is the most well known in English-language countries is probably the writings of the Polish writer Stanislaw Lem and the Russian writers Boris and Arkady Strugatsky. Much of their works have been translated into English and are reasonably well known to anyone with a good knowledge of the history of science fiction. Well, O.K., even more well known are the works of the French writer Jules Verne, but I presume that you knew about him and that you were interested in things written since science fiction as a genre (and not as isolated works) began in the 1920’s.
I started reading it but my reading habits combined with the structure combined with trying to recall Russian names from last time I sat down with it made it difficult.
However, I picked up the audiobook version from Audible and it’s been fantastic for me so far. Rupert Degas’ narration is top notch and I’ve been following along much easier. Bit of a price tag (though it is 20+ hours) but you can get a free trial with two book credits and/or just subscribe to the service and get one credit a month.
[Edit: Also, I don’t think you linked to the book you intended]
There have been lots of individual SF volumes devoted to SF from other countries. Asimov edited two volumes of Soviet Science Fiction. I have a book of French science fiction.
One country that seems not to be sufficiently covered is Germany, even though it has an SF tradition as old as Jules Verne. Kurd Lasswitz was very influential (all the members of the German Rocket Society were fans, and named the Impeller rocket after a spaceship part in his Zwei Planete), but I only know of three stories of his translated into English (two by Willy Ley – one of those rocketeers, and an impressice science fact writer himself – in F&SF in the 1950s, one more recently), and his novel Two Planets, about an invasion from technologically superior Martians released at the same time as Wells’ War of the Worlds. Actually, Lasswitz’ novel has only been printed twice in English, and neither edition is complete.
For that matter, despite the fact that it’s been filmed twice, Stanisla Lem’s Solaris has never been fully translated into English, either. And the only English version is actually a translation from the French version.
Well if Canada isn’t where your from I would have to say Robert j Sawyer,
He has won the Hugo and Nebula awards.
I happen to love all his Canadian references from poutine to the ROM
A while ago ABC adapted his book Flashforward and made a tv show
A super guy with a great mind.
*ROM is the Royal Ontario Museum, sorry about that should have been more specific
*Poutine is French fries with gravy and cheese
Several examples are given here:
with links to main articles and lists.
Japanese SF (not animated or comic-book/manga):
I’ve enjoyed the translated works of Housuke Nojiri: Usurper of the Sun, Rocket Girls, The Last Planet. Also the books of Hiroyuki Morioka (Crest of the Stars) – those *have *been animated, but I prefer the original novels.
Well, they don’t have to be translated into English, but Britain has produced a few good sci-fi authors. Brian Aldiss, for one. He’s as removed from California as Stanislaw Lem. “Report on Probability A” is well worth checking out.
J G Ballard and John Wyndham are in their own way quintessentially English, although they probably hated each other; “High-Rise” and “The Day of the Triffids” both present visions of hell on England. Douglas Adams had a limited pool of ideas but he was as English as Tunnock’s tea cakes.
Which are actually Scottish. Michael Moorcock’s “Behold the Man” is a minor classic - he’s Jesus all along! - and “The Condition of Muzak”, one of the later Jerry Cornelius novels, is essential if you want to know what life was like in Britain in the 1970s. Arthur C. Clarke is very famous but his novels aren’t particularly British. Terry Pratchett is also very famous and his novels are much more English-ish.
I’m sure there are lots of others. My recollection is that Robert Heinlein was more or less a nobody in the UK because his novels are utterly un-English, they come across as complete nonsense over here, but the stereotype is that both him and Ayn Rand are the two sci-fi authors that Americans like. Surely this is not the case.
An article on Cuban scifi… Discovering Cuban Sci-fi | Boing Boing
I read part of a Russion science fiction novel translated to English. It was from the Soviet era. The science aspects were somewhat downplayed, it did much better at conveying human emotions and dialogue than many English speaking science fiction authors. I don’t know what happened to that book before I got to finish it.
Another small novel was a little on the juvenile side, something about a scientist’s brain transplanted into an elephant. Entertaining writing, but very soft science. My father brought these back from the USSR. I assume they were translated to english as the common language to use for foreign visitors.
Another vote Lem’s Solaris. It’s a must-read IMHO, full of haunting imagery and quite intriguing thoughts (doubts actually) on the feasibility of human-extraterrestrial communication. One of the SF books that’s impressed me the most.
As far as SF from the USSR is concerned, I’ve read a few short stories in an anthology and they were disappointing. Some were barely OK, some were mediocre and at least one was unbelievably stupid (I would have been ashamed to write something so ridiculous back when I was a teenager - really, it was that bad). I would save the last one in the collection, though: Ballad of the Stars by Zhuravlyova and Altov. While not great, it was pretty entertaining though it got a little bit heavy on soviet propaganda towards the end.
And you can’t forget Perry Rhodan (Perry Rhodan - Wikipedia), the longest running SF series in the world. Been published as a weekly pulp series since 1961 and has sold more than 1 billion issues. :eek:
I don’t know if it’s available with subtitles, but if you like surrealist humor you may want to give cyberpunk Acción Mutante a look. The first movie by Álex de la Iglesia, backed by Almodóvar, has been said to be “one of those stories that make you feel like you’re drugged even if you totally, absolutely are not”. The movie was filmed in 1993 and is set in 2014, making this a perfectly timely viewing.
In fact, if you like movies that may be bad for any sanity you have, de la Iglesia’s tend to have high pharmacological value.
Fernando Trueba died recently while filming El mecanoscripte del segon origin (Mechanoscript of the Second Origin), based on the book generally regarded as the first science fiction novel written in Catalan. I haven’t watched the movie and don’t think it’s been released yet, but did enjoy the novel a lot (some of the best details can’t translate to a visual medium, though).
The movie the OP mentions is called “Santa Claus.” I’m trying to remember the number of the MST3K episode for it. (Mike is hosting, if that helps)