The Sfwa European Hall Of Fame

Author: James Morrow

Short stories are often a great way for readers to discover new writers, so they are often a key route by which non-Anglophone writers can reach an English readership. Even so, anthologies traditionally sell less well than novels, so an anthology entirely composed of work in translation is a bold venture. For anyone interested in sf from other languages, however, it succeeded dramatically.Science fiction in Europe has a history at least as long as that in Britain, and is as thoroughly embedded within the different cultures, but it is far less well known outside the countries of origin. Because publishers in relatively small countries are more willing to produce work in translation, readers in Sweden or Romania are going to be far more familiar with Anglo-American sf than we are with their work. But here, in this anthology, you will discover stories from France, Russia, Italy, the Czech Republic, Finland, Poland, Spain, Greece, Romania, Germany, Portugal, Holland and Denmark. There are fables and satires, hard sf and dystopias, Orwellian nightmares and subtle comedies, time paradoxes and alien visitations. The full range of science fiction is on display.Why it's on the listIn tone and subject matter, European sf is probably as close to Anglo-American sf as you can get without actually writing in English, and given the quality of the work included here, it is criminal that these writers are not better known outside their own countries.