How do you even start a project like The Big Book of Science Fiction? Where do you begin and how can you make sure you get it right?
After curating anthologies like The Weird and The Time Traveler’s Almanac, we realized that there is an awful lot of great fiction out there that no one has heard of—at least lately, that is. And, as always, some of the fiction lauded as the best from a certain time period may not hold up for modern readers.
Here are just a few of the ways we tackled this project…
Julio Cortázar was an influential Argentine writer who wrote poetry, essays, plays, novels and short fiction. Although considered one of the major writers of Latin American literature of the 20th century—along with Jorge Luis Borges, Carlos Fuentes and Gabriel Garcia Márquez—Cortázar wrote much of his important work while living in exile in France. During the 1960s and 1970s his work became world renowned and many of his more popular writings were translated, thereby reaching an even larger audience.
World literature is a passion of mine, and translated fiction is near and dear to my heart. Seeing the world from diverse perspectives is also near and dear to my heart. The nuances of culture and point of view add depth to the reader’s understanding and help break down barriers between people. Communications can occur, and influences, that might otherwise never happen. Indeed, Cortázar spent some time as a translator himself, bringing the work of such authors as Edgar Allen Poe and Daniel Defoe into Spanish.
Julio Cortázar was an influential Argentine writer who wrote poetry, essays, plays, novels and short fiction. Although considered one of the major writers of Latin American literature of the 20th century—along with Jorge Luis Borges, Carlos Fuentes and Gabriel Garcia Márquez— Cortázar wrote much of his important work while living in exile in France. During the 1960s and 1970s his work became world renowned and many of his more popular writings were translated, thereby reaching an even larger audience.
World literature is a passion of mine, and translated fiction is near and dear to my heart. Seeing the world from diverse perspectives is also near and dear to my heart. The nuances of culture and point of view add depth to the reader’s understanding and help break down barriers between people. Communications can occur, and influences, that might otherwise never happen. Indeed, Cortázar spent some time as a translator himself, bringing the work of such authors as Edgar Allen Poe and Daniel Defoe into Spanish.
We’ve got the introduction to Steampunk III: Steampunk Revolution, edited by Ann VanderMeer, out on December 1 from Tachyon Publications:
Playfully mashing up the romantic elegance of the Victorian era with whimsically modernized technology, this entertaining and edgy new anthology is the third installment in a bestselling steampunk series. Featuring a renegade collective of writers and artists—from beloved legends to rising talents—the steam-driven past is rebooted and powered by originality, wit, and adventure. Lev Grossman offers a different take on the Six Million Dollar Man who possesses appendages and workings from recycled metal parts, yet remains fully human, resilient, and determined. Catherynne M. Valente explores a new form of parenting within the merging of man and machine while Cherie Priest presents a new, unsettling mode of transportation. Bruce Sterling introduces steampunk’s younger cousin, salvage-punk, while speculating on how cities will be built in the future using preexisting materials and Jeff VanderMeer takes an antisteampunk perspective as a creator must turn his back on an utterly destructive creation. Going beyond the simple realms of corsets and goggles, this engaging collection takes readers on a wild ride through Victoriana and beyond.
In Angela Carter’s amazing Nights at the Circus, Fevvers, a highwire act if ever there was one, causes disbelief and awe in equal measure because she’s billed as a flying woman, but in flight she takes her time and rudely ignores the laws of gravity. It’s as if she’s daring the audience to call her a fake, to accuse her of being held up by invisible wires and other tricks of the circus trade.
Steampunk has its own version of this high wire act, in that depictions of dirigibles in movies represent a kind of tipping point for the audience’s threshold of disbelief. Most films don’t attempt to realistically map out what a fantastical dirigible might look like—they’re just interested in something that seems visually cool. We can get behind that—cool is good. But sometimes it doesn’t work, especially because a dirigible in a righteous Steampunk movie is a kind of character in and of itself. Not believing in a character, even one made of canvas, wood, and metal, can doom a film.
