Reviews of Phantastic Novels

For a long time, it was hard to get good (science fiction) books in Germany. These days, many great novels have been reprinted ... until they'll be unavailable again.
There is much more to phantastic reading than just science fiction, and some good books have suffered from being labeled SF, for many other potential readers never even considered reading them. I have read all novels on this page myself, and for one reason or another I'd like to recommend them to you.

Salman Rushdie's Haroun and the Sea of Stories (1990) is one of the best and most beautiful books of Rushdie, and unlike some other, not hard to understand. A feary tale from Kashmir about telling tales. Mira, a friend of mine, has done wonderful illustrations about the story which made me read the book in the first place.

Harry Mulisch's De ontdekking van de hemel is also a phantastic story and one of the best contemporary novels. Still the ending has disappointed me. I got the book as a "present for a know-it-all" (with the assumption that the giver is a know-it-all too.) Or let's just say intellectual, especially when you are interesting in current history, philosophy and science. I am still not sure if I've already fully understood the story.

To say nothing of the dog (1997) by Connie Willis is one of those books that would have done better without the "science fiction" label. There is not much science and when it occurs, it's neither relevant nor convincing. Quite interesting though are the time travels into the Victorian Age of old England. Especially for those of you who have read the classic books of that time. I am not quite one of those, but I found it a lot of fun reading anyway.
Besides Shakespeare, Willis' often recurs to Three Men in a Boat and last but not least to Lewis Carroll and his stories about Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1862; sequel: Through the Looking Glass).

Solaris: Standislaw Lem, Andrey Tarkowsky and Steven Spielberg:

Stanislaw Lem (1921-2006): Solaris - The new German Heyne edition of the novel Solaris, which has been adapted to the big screen twice now, starts with a foreword by Ursula K. Le Guin, who in 1973 rejected the Nebula Award to protest against Lem's exclusion from the Science Fiction Writers of America association. The Left Hand of Darkness (1969) is one of her most remarkable stories.
Stanislaw Lem's Solaris is a weird story about people in a space station turning around a conscious planet, which remains a mistery to the scientists. The expedition turns into a trip into their own past instead. Although a good friend of mine actually liked Steven Spielberg's new Solaris film with Clooney, I would still recommend to everyone to view the Russian film from the seventies by Andrey Tarkovsky. It's indeed quite epic, but it perfectly catches the spirit and the atmosphere of the original book, which is certainly also worth reading. There are also some funny aspects in the old film and in the book. Stanislaw Lem, who was also a doctor and a car mechanic, died in March 2006 in the Polish town of Krakow and will be remembered as a brilliant mind who never ceased to criticize the downside of technical progress.

Science Fiction Classics

John Brunner has a high reputation for classic science-fiction writing.
His topics like cyberspace (The Shockwave Rider), ecological calamities (The Sheep Look Up) and an epic story (The Crucible of Time) still fascinate, more than twenty years after they were written.

Philip K. Dick (1928-1982) has written a great variety of stories throughout his life, some of them thrilling, some of them thoughtful. The German editor Heyne has re-published some of his best stories in an anthology called The Impossible Planet (Der unmögliche Planet), including Total Recall (We Can Remember It For You Wholesale, 1966) and Minority Report, now well-known on the big screen. One of the best compilations of SF stories so far!

Jack Vance's Nopalgarth is not only another example of ridiculous translation titles (German title: Krieg der Gehirne = War of the Brains), but it's also a nice little (SF) story about the subjectively or actually freed mind. At Bastei Luebbe edition published in a bundle with The Languages of Pao, a less interesting story which is still OK to read. Both stories are nearly 50 years old now.

David Brin: The Practise Effect, Earth (1990)
David Brin has a reputation as a scientist as well as a SF writer. He can combine realistic and convincing details with sheer unbelievable ideas within the same story, and no matter how dramatic everything might get, it is true that Brin's optimism always shines through all of his books. Sundiver (1980, in Germany unreleased until 1995) is sometimes confusing, sometimes funny, and full of surprises like a good criminal story.

Consider Phlebas by Ian M. Banks is SF in a classical way, but you can also read it as a parody on the embarassing and unproductive conflict between the "western" and the arabic culture.




Dune (1965) by Frank Herbert is one of the best known pieces of SF and there have been quite different films, TV series and spin-offs. I didn't read the sequels because a friend told me not to. The inhabitants of the desert planet Arrakis have a lot in common with the Touareg, and sometimes it feels like reading a documentary about some special islamic brotherhood somewhere in the desert. Noone has yet heard about sandworms in planet Earth's deserts, but we all heard about the games and fights of the noble and of the politicians. The story of Dune has some nice ancient touch, nearly even a touch of a feary tale. The classic film also goes in that direction. Cartoon genius Moebius finally did not contribute to the film, but the costumes still look like inspired by his work.

Rebels of Cyberspace: Marge Piercy, Neal Stephenson and Jeff Noon

Marge Piercy: He, She and It
This surprising novel is not only "a stunning combination of cyberpunk and Jewish culture" (Wolfgang Tress), but most of all a book that found its fans far away from the technoid SF scene. There are flashbacks into the historic city of Prague where the legendary Golem comes to a new life. Piercy manages to lighten her sombre vision of the future by building a little utopia inside of it.

Jeff Noon is the writer of some very weird and remarkable novels. His form of cyberspace is more beatnik literature than science fiction. The acting persons and characters suck at special feathers to get into the Vurt which in turn wants to have a greater impact on the (not) normal, real world. The setting is a future Manchester whose inhabitants (dog people, half dead and others) are surely a parody on the cities of the 20th century. The sequel is called Pollen (1995).

Neal Stephenson: Snow Crash (1993)
Stephenson's vision of cyberspace, a three-dimensional internet, has been an inspiration to many programmers; readers nowadays will probably be more fascinated by the witty allusions to religions and cultures since the days of Babylon, and by the fast and conversational style of storytelling which is due to the fact, that Stephenson planned to make a cartoon album in the first place.
The heroes Hiro Protagonist (like the name already tells) and Y.T., a young courier driver on a high tech skateboard fight against a world conspiracy that makes use of religion, computer viruses and real viruses. Snow Crash is one of those stories that pretend to be science fiction while actually telling much more about our present day world.

Avalon, Middle Earth and Hogwarts:

Marion Z. Bradley: The Mists of Avalon (1982)
J.R.R. Tolkien: The Lord of the Rings (1955)
Joan K. Rowling: Harry Potter (Series, 1997-2007)

These novels are among the most famous of all times, and just lice Umberto Eco's Name of the Rose you just "have to" read them. It's not enough to watch the movies, although except for the one about Avalon they are also quite notable. As the novels are huge, take your time ...
"The Mists of Avalon" tells the saga of King Arthur, but although this is also a book about knights, the battles are not in the focus of the story, but emotions and religion is. The Priestess of Avalon (2000) takes place in a time before the Mists of Avalon, it is the story of the Avalon priestess Eilan who walks worldly paths as Julia Helena, who gives birth to the emperor-to-be Constantine, who cares for the sick together with pope Sylvester, and who nevertheless still holds high her Celtic religion. After writer Marion Zimmer Bradley died, her colleague Diana L. Paxson finished the story. Paxson has a lot of her own experience with Celctic culture these days. Quite another interpretation of the topic is brought to us in Mamoru Oshii's film Avalon (see below).

Cloak, dagger and elvish tales can be found in J.R.R. Tolkien's classic The Lord of the Rings (1954/55). Germans should stick to the old translation by Margaret Carroux (try your library). The English version can be hard for non-native speakers because of all the old language. There is a paperback with a three books and an extensive appendix published by Harper Collins.

Umberto Eco's Name of the Rose is more than just another medieval thriller. Not only was it one of the pioneers of that genre, it's still one of the most intelligent and most accurate novels written about the Middle Ages, and while it's really thrilling you learn a lot about medieval theology by the way.

Good places to read Avalon or the Lord of the Rings are the Celtic parts of the UK, or for a continental trip, why not Brittanny (La Bretagne)? Preferably during the summer when there are Medieval festivals (Village Viking) in the old historic villages.


A friend of mine looked into my backpack and asked me if Harry Potter was really worth reading? It is! Great books! The series of seven books altogether begins with children's books, but during the story, the world of Hogwarts gets darker and more complex. Maybe this is the reason why it's become so popular, Rowling writing much more than the usual happy ending dear kids stuff. Besides all of the magic, the world of Harry Potter is quite down to earth, and often it becomes an ironic parody of our real world. I have read all the books one after the other and enjoyed it a lot. Facts and links about Harry Potter

Phantastic Films?

A good film can be just as englightening and thrilling as a phantastic novel. Although many readers fear that the films might alter their own imagination and of the book, different interpretations of it can actually co-exist just like different variations on the same theme. Remakes are often judged negatively in comparison to the original, while they're still good films when viewed without prejudice. Solaris, Dune and Kingdom Hospitals are examples for this. Fantasy films often suffer this misjudgement, even when director and film team cooperate closely with the author like they did when producing Harry Potter.

Soundtrack to the reading suggestions