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Loading... The Black Mirror and Other Stories: An Anthology of Science Fiction from Germany and Austria (Early Classics Of Science Fiction) (edition 2008)by Franz Rottensteiner (Editor), Mike Mitchell (Translator)
Work InformationThe Black Mirror and Other Stories: An Anthology of Science Fiction from Germany and Austria (Early Classics of Science Fiction) by Franz Rottensteiner (Editor)
   No current Talk conversations about this book.  Ebenmaessiger | Oct 9, 2019 |    ) dave_42 | Mar 30, 2019 |
 The Black Mirror & Other Stories: An Anthology of Science Fiction From Germany & Austria (Wesleyan University Press, 2008) samples 25 stories spanning the history of German and Austrian SF. Editor Franz Rottensteiner has made his life's work studying and writing about science fiction. Rottensteiner's insightful, detailed commentary and biographical sketches add to your enjoyment of these stories. His brief but fascinating introduction chronicles the development of the genre and the mutual influence it had on society. Mike Mitchell's excellent translation also deserves special notice. He translates convoluted wordplay and obscure idioms, as well as imagined technical jargon seamlessly, while preserving the native voice of the authors.  I can't speak to the accuracy of Mike Mitchell's translation, but I can report that his is a wonderfully varied voice, moving effortlessly from the formal C19th to fluid and dislocated 21st idioms with no sign of strain. The reader gets no sense of a writer imposing his own style on different authors; on the contrary the English is clearly being put at the service of the German. Rottensteiner's invaluable general introduction is cool, comprehensive and informative, although his mini-intros and annotations to the actual stories are sometimes a little over-filled... But the intros are full of good stuff nonetheless: from the grievous—Egon Friedell, an Austrian Jew who converted to Lutheranism, committed suicide by leaping from a window after the Anchluss in 1938—to the puckish. I liked, for instance, the factoid that Carl Amery is "probably the only author who received a lifetime award from a city that he destroyed (in a book)." Overall: a very worthwhile collection of stories indeed. Belongs to Publisher SeriesDistinctions
Handsomely equipped with a comprehensive introductory historical essay, editor's notes and selected bibliography, this distinguished anthology is a model of genre research. These previously untranslated stories, published from 1871 onward, offer reading virtually unknown to most American (and many German) readers. Some authors combine scientific and philosophical issues, like Kurd Lasswitz in his witty tale "To the Absolute Zero of Existence: A Story from 2371," while others, as in Erik Simon's 1983 title story, pose psychological puzzles involving alien phenomena. Though the earlier stories in particular demand painstaking reading, all of them repay it with rewarding insights into German and Austrian culture and the many possible uses and misuses of science. No library descriptions found. |
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 Google Books — Loading...GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)833.087608Literature German and related languages German fiction Fiction of specific media, scope, kinds {only by more than one author} Specific kinds of fiction Adventure fiction Science and fantasy fiction, alternative historiesLC ClassificationRatingAverage: (4.25)
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Wikipedia in English
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- Almost unbelievable that this was written in 1871. It literally prefigured around 60% of the major themes and tropes of a certain type of culturally concerned sci-fi (future art [scent music], the weird backwards looking nostalgia of poetry’s "modernists" in this world [think Hyperions Keats fixation], and the endless discussion concerning the unbridgeable divides between science and art). Most amazingly, however, it even managed to prefigure 35% of the rest of sci-fi at the same time (east Asian war; terrraforming; screens screens screens; and concern for 'public opinion,' aka like culture).
"The Age of the Burning Mountains," by Horst Pukallus (1989): 7
- Oof, hurts to end on a typo. I mean, the many others -- mostly related to misused prepositions and less-common, awkwardly rendered turns of phrase -- are largely forgotten, if you just don't put one in the fucking final sentence. Oh well, was largely pretty scattershot, and severely misdirected (if there was one at all, other than a rambling playing about with post-apocalyptic scenarios by a fan, replete with some unthinking moral characterization thrown in [hell, I'd of accepted a- or im-, as long as the thought was there], a la the domestic abuse and short turn from layabout to nascent dystopian Turn-and-Taxis comms king). The obvious temptation is to read such a story, written in such a place and at such a time, through several different lens: one being climatological, as the response and post-Catastrophe consequences all seem to resemble the inevitable austerities of a post-CC world; and the other being topical, this being 1989 and him being German. The answer seems to be, however, that none of these filters are evident in the work itself, or at least there's little intentional or symbolic here. It's a SF conceit and it's followed through on with conventional SF trajectories, some done more skillfully than conventional SF [the characterization and droll release of details], and some done less skillfully [the prose and emplotment].