Sunday, September 23, 2012

Updated international book review listings

Here is an update on the books included in the International Special.  I seem to have missed a few in my previous lists.  These will start tomorrow, and there will be a break on the weekends.  They are not in order of upcoming appearance:

2012 - Alisa Krasnostein and Ben Payne (editors) Australian short story collection

The Decline and Fall of the British Empire (1905) - Elliot E. Mills - British, Collapse of the first World Empire

Ashes, Ashes (Ravage) - René Barjavel - Vichy French

Quarter-Life Crises - Evan Murphy - Canadian - Graphic novel set in Toronto

Coming From an Off-Key Time - Bogdan Suceavã - Romanian

Enfold Me - Steven Greenberg - Israel

Vlad - Carlos Fuentes

The Literary Conference - César Aira - Argentinian, but mostly set in Venezuela

The Massive - Brian Wood - Graphic novel serial - American author with international setting

The Loom of Ruin - Sam McPheeter - American author set in the immegrant melting pot of Los Angelos

Fall Out - Gudrun Pausewang - West Germany

Friends and Other Stories of the Apocalypse- A.P. Menzie - American author/Japanese illustrator - but it was short and free.

La Jetée Ciné Roman - Chris Marker - French - Based on movie of the same name. Was the inspiration for the movie 12 Monkeys.

Memoria - Alex Bobl - Russian - Classic noir fiction in a dystopian future setting

Dog Eat Dog - David Rodgers - British with International setting. Has a RPG game (Yellow Dawn) associated with it.

Oryx and Crake - Margaret Atwood - Canadian authoress - mosly U.S. setting, but some in Asia

The Rest is Silence - Scott Fotheringham - Canadian author - split between New York City and Nova Scotia

Living Souls - Dmitry Bykov - Collapse in Russia

H.P. Lovecraft - Michel Hoellebecq - A French author reviews the importance of the early master.  Two of H.P.'s stories (Call of Cthulhu, and The Whisperer in the Darkness) are included.

For completeness, these are the international novels that we have already reviewed (see book review tab):

King of the Store Room - Antonio Porta - Italian

China Tidal Wave - Wang Lixiong -Chinese

Tobaccoo Stained Mountain Goat - Andrez Bergen - Australian

Malevil - Robert Merle - French

Yellow Cake Spring - Guy Salvidge - Australian

Kingdom of Four Rivers - Guy Salvidge - Australian

Red Queen - Honey Brown - Australian

2 comments:

kymber said...

wow...pretty impressive list! la jetee isn't even in print anymore! can't wait for your review. i love Atwood's The Handmaiden's Tale - that's kind of apocalyptic - have you read it? and of course i can't wait for your review of The Rest Is Silence!

your friend,
kymber

russell1200 said...

Kymber: La Jetee both the book and the movie are still available directly from the amazon.us. So while I am sure they aren't making current print runs, someone is still sitting on a stack of them. The movie is paired with another movie Sans Soleil - which makes sense since La Jetee is so short.

I have not read The Hand Maidens Tale. After reading the Gate at Women's Country, I became alergic to such books. Although I would agree that is apocalyptic enough for inclusion otherwise.

The Rest is Silence is geared toward a contemporary fiction market. Which means it will win awards, but likely get no traction with the apocalyptic crowd. The typical contemporary fiction novel makes better use of the language than the typical apocalyptic novel, but otherwise has its own genre problems. I find them interetsting because they are different, but not always better.