RIP: Boris Strugatsky (1933-2012)

From Locus: Russian author Boris Strugatsky, 79, died November 19, 2012 in St. Petersburg, Russia from heart problems and pneumonia. Strugatsky and his older brother Arkady (died 1991) were famous for their collaborations. They are easily the best known Russian SF writers worldwide, and were considered major writers in their homeland, though their sometimes satirical...

Soviet Space Art

Larry Yudelson sent us this link, From Flavorwire: Trippy ’70s Soviet Space Magazine Covers.   If you like these, also check out our earlier post on Chinese space art.

Original Content: Non-Western SF Roundtable (Part 2)

Part 2 of our roundtable on Non-Western SF. Part 1 is here. Participating: Aliette de Bodard (France), Joyce Chng (Singapore), Requires Hate(Thailand), Rochita Loenen-Ruiz (Philippines/The Netherlands),Ekaterina Sedia (Russian/USA), Rachel Swirsky (USA). # Aliette: We talk about colonisation, which is mostly a phenomenon of the past (but which has left marks and scars everywhere that will take a long time to fade); but I think we...

Monday Original Content: Non-Western SF Roundtable (Part 1)

SF is the literature of the imaginary. How can the imaginations of writers from outside the Western narrative contribute new perspectives to this literature? - Fabio Fernandes Fabio Fernandes has recently given Locus a prompt for a round table, above. The resultant round table discussion was notable for a near complete absence of non-Westerners -...

Ekaterina Sedia interviewed at Airship Ambassador

Ekaterina Sedia is interviewed at Airship Ambassador, talking about steampunk, fashion and latest novel Heart of Iron. Part one of the interview is here, and part two here. AA: The Alchemy of Stone was about feminism, free will, class struggle, and religion, and The House of Discarded Dreams is a place where forgotten dreams fester and take on a life of...

The Encyclopaedia of Feminism According to Harry Potter

Ekaterina Sedia recently translated this delightful, non-existent table of contents for an Encyclopaedia of Feminism According to Harry Potter, compiled by Russian fans. We thought it was too good not to share! Encyclopaedia of Feminism According to Harry Potter The Practice of Female Separatism in Daily Life of Luna Lovegood Hermione Granger on Liberal Feminism Female...

Maurice Broaddus interviews Ekaterina Sedia

Maurice Broaddus interviews Apex Book of World SF 2 contributor Ekaterina Sedia (author of the fantastic The Secret History of Moscow and the recent The House of Discarded Dreams): 2.  Is African folklore an interest of yours?  What made you decide to explore this for a fantasy novel?  With themes of the lingering effects of colonialism...

On Soviet Science Fiction Films

Over at SF Signal, Grady Hendrix talks about the history of Soviet science fiction films: The titles are what grab you: I Killed Einstein, Gentlemen; Dead Mountaineer’s Hotel; Who Wants to Kill Jessie?; To The Stars By Hard Ways;Ferat Vampire; Test Pilot Pirxa; Ikarie XB-1. A heady combination of ESL literalism, proletarian bluntness and purple exploitation prose, who could come up...

The Immersion Book of Steampunk

Here's the table of contents for new anthology The Immersion Book of Steampunk, edited by Gareth D. Jones and Carmelo Rafala and published by Immersion Press. International contributors include Aliette de Bodard, Jacques Barcia, Anatoly Belilovsky and Lavie Tidhar. Table of contents: “Follow That Cathedral!” by Gareth Owens “The Machines of the Nehphilim” by James Targett “The...

Esli

First published in Russkaya Fantastika, 18.01.2009. Translation by René Walling, editing by Val Grimm. Esli Magazine (, "If") is probably the oldest Russian sf magazine. Founded in 1991, but really distributed since 1993, it has a print run of 14,000 pocket sized issues a year. If you had to compare it to French magazines, Esli...