Speculative Fiction from Around the World
Nick Mamatas has announced the table of contents for new anthology The Future Is Japanese, published by Haikasoru, and collecting brand-new SF stories from a mix of Japanese and foreign writers. Table of Contents: “Mono No Aware” by Ken Liu “The Sound of Breaking Up” by Felicity Savage “Chitai Heiki Koronbīn” by David Moles “The... Continue Reading →
We've been offering original content throughout this relaunch week: today, Charles Tan interviews Japanese author Sayuri Ueda, whose novel The Cage of Zeus is published by Haikasoru (translated by Takami Nieda). The Rounds are humans with the sex organs of both genders. Artificially created to test the limits of the human body in space, they... Continue Reading →
Over at SFWA, Nick Mamatas and Masumi Washington list, and comment on, the list of all-time best Japanese SF, as voted on by readers of Japan's SF Magazine in 2006. 1. Hyakuoku no hiru to senoku no yoru (Ten Billion Days and One Hundred Billion Nights) by Ryu Mitsuse (1967) An epic, cosmic adventure in the manner of... Continue Reading →
The Lord of the Sands of Time Ogawa Issui Reviewed by Brittain Barber I am going to go ahead and assume that no readers out there are currently wondering what would happen if aliens invaded ancient Japan, or how time traveling cyborgs would fight them off. Even if the cyborgs had been skipping through time... Continue Reading →
Cathy Hirano - translator of the "Mirror Sword and Shadow Prince, the second volume in Noriko Ogiwara’s Tales of the Magatama series, published by VIZ Media’s Haikasoru imprint", is interviewed by Alexander O. Smith over at the Tokyo Translators Group site. After graduating from ICU, I reviewed English YA books for possible Japanese publication and occasionally... Continue Reading →
The Haikasoru blog is currently having a giveaway for Mirror Sword and Shadow Prince by Noriko Ogiwara and the contest mechanics piqued my interest: ...just write a little bit of what you think about this question: When readers think “fantasy” they often think of stories taking place in a pseudo-medieval Europe. Is this just due to the facts... Continue Reading →
The Philip K. Dick Special Citation Award goes to Haikasoru's Harmony by Project Itoh (and translated by Alexander O. Smith). The Haikasoru Blog has coverage of the event, including a video.
Haikasoru Week is over, but as an addendum, why not check out beatrice.com, who have just run an interview with two of Haikasoru's translators, Jim Hubbert and Cathy Hirano: To give just one example, the word miya, which is used in both books, means “palace” according to the Japanese-English dictionary. That seems simple enough—but what image does the... Continue Reading →
And we have winners! I’d like to thank everyone who entered the competition this week, and everyone who’s visited the blog to check out our Haikasoru Week. I'm very pleased with the turnout, and hope we can feature another publisher highlight soon. In the meantime, the next Author Week is just around the corner! As before,... Continue Reading →
On Japanese SF By Nick Mamatas In Issui Ogawa’s The Next Continent, the “war on terror” is a political afterthought thanks to an American retreat from the Middle East; Japanese businesspeople see themselves as a counterweight to Western globalization; and engineers can do anything from building undersea vacation spots to constructing a wedding chapel on... Continue Reading →
The World SF Blog 