Translated science fiction June

American steampunk, British catastrophe and travel to the country of dreams

The battle of good with evil on the streets of the Victorian London, Anti -Utopia, which almost came true, and the Great Comics about the Sandless Man: once a month Vasily Vladimir, specifically for Gorky, tells about the best news of translation science fiction. Today we will talk about the books of James Blaylok, Christopher Pros and Neil Gaiman.

James Blaleok. Gomunkul. SPb.: Arkady, 2019. Translation from English Alan Kubatieva

We say steampunk - we mean James Blaleok; We say James Blaleok - we mean steampunk. In other words, without this guy, there would be no one of the most entertaining subcultures of the late twentieth - beginning of the twenty -first century: it is his texts that lie at the base of the grand pyramid on the steam walk, it is K. W. Jetter that refers to them in the famous letter, where the name of this direction was first sounded. Well, the novel “Gomunkul” is considered one of the main works of Blaylok - it was not without reason that the book brought the author the prize of Philip K. Dick in 1987, when this award was still given for strange, bizarre, in a good way crazy texts, and not for something sweet, cozy and secondary.

So, the Victorian London, the last quarter of the blessed XIX century, the era of steam and electricity, faith in progress and the all -conquering power of the human mind. Two warring teams hunt for a certain dangerous and seductive artifact that promises a victory over entropy that can give an eternal life or deliver a spaceship to the limits of the solar system. On the side of the forces of good is the young inventor Langdon Saint-Ivan and his Trismegist club comrades, cute eccentric and charming freaks. On the side of the forces of evil are selfish bastards without honor and conscience, whom the language does not turn to call gentlemen. The ominous hunchback Dr. Ignacio Norbondo is a necromancer and creator of disgusting zombies. Kelso Drake is the owner of the Gazet plants, the unscrupulous exploiter of the working class, the pot-bellied bourgeois in the cylinder and with the unchanged cigar in the teeth, as if leaving the Kukryniks posters. The crazy preacher Shilokh is the “self -proclaimed Messiah”, obscurantist, prophesying the end of the world, but not disdaining the craft of the counterfeiter.

For the first time, Blaleok introduced the audience to these colorful characters back in 1978 in the story of The Ape-Box Affair, then returned to them in 1984, in The Idol's Eye-and, having taken up the “Homunkul”, without ado, he continued the story from the place where he stopped last time. The action of the novel begins literally half a word, the heroes exchange hints of circumstances completely unfamiliar to the reader-if we were talking about some other writer, this could be called a serious puncture. But the beauty is that the “Homunkul” is a book in which the connectedness of the narrative and the persuasiveness of motivation are far from the first place. The prose of Blaylok, the absurd, grotesque, punish, does not apply for credibility - on the contrary, the more paradoxical, the more beautiful. “There is something in lightning something that immediately leads me to the thought of sausage. I don’t know why, ”one of the characters admits: all the heroes of the book adhere to such carnival logic. It is enough to accept these rules of the game, tune in to the right wave, and the novel will go with a bang, as in clockwork.

Blaleok emphasizes the vaudeinability of this story by all available means: even if it rains on the street and thunder rumbles, an atmosphere of comfort and comfort, safety and kindness is immediately created around positive heroes. When a team of villains enters into business, the scene miraculously transforms: at home they begin to discard gloomy shadows, carries a carrion from the ditches, the threat is thickening in the air. Only a remark for performers is missing: “laughs ugly”, “smiles sweetly”, etc. At the same time, the Gomunkul is written with a sincere love for the Victorian London-and the excellent knowledge of the realities, which is not entirely characteristic of an American science fiction writer. And the heroes of Blaylok appetizingly smoke tubes, drink whiskey and enjoy the taste of the chop so that the reader begins to flow - that is, they lead an unhealthy lifestyle: a monstrous non -prostitute, an inadmissible insult to the feelings of vegan and supporters of healthy lifestyle.

Christopher Pristress. Fugue for the Darkening Island. M.: AST, 2019. Translation from English Mikhail Molchanov

“Fugue for the Darkening Island” is the second romance of Christopher Pros: the book was published a few years before the “overturned world”, which brought the author the first noisy success, and long before the “prestige”, which glorified it throughout the world after the adaptation of K. Nolan. By and large, this is a pen test, timid youthful handwriting. On the other hand, for some middle-aged fiber, “Fuga ...” would become a noticeable milestone in a creative biography. The priest wrote this catastrophe novel in 1972, when the fashion for the catastrophe novels in the UK almost came to naught-the appropriation in protest, partly experiment for. In Russia, it is not the earliest version of the text, but the option, already processed in our days, is a little disappointing, but it is possible that in the literary plan, the editing really benefited the novel.

“Fugue for the Darkening Island” is an impassive, detached fixation of the events taking place in the life of the protagonist, a former university teacher, while the world (in any case, England) rolls to all hell. A limited nuclear war in Central Africa made a black continent actually unsuitable for life. Hunger, epidemics, radioactive infection - who survived by hook or by crook try to get out of this hell, and part of Afrahims, African immigrants, gets to the shores of vague albion. Where they, of course, are not at all expected with open arms. Aframmmov is only two million, it seems that there are not so many against the general background (for reference: by the beginning of the 1970s, the population of the British Islands was more than 55 million people).

But in combination with other circumstances, this straw breaks the back of the camel. The economic crisis, the ultra -conservative government in power, the extreme polarization of part of the society and the depressing inertia of the majority lead to the usual order scattered and the civil war flashes in the country. Hundreds of thousands of the British are thrown to the side of life, representatives of the middle class turn into homeless vagabonds - among them is the main character of the plaque with a family, wife and daughter. Actually, “Fugu ...” can be considered as a detailed mental experiment: what can make an educated Englishman who is critical of any propaganda, accustomed everywhere and maintain neutrality in everything, choose finally and take up arms.

The priest himself does not really love this book. “Fugue ...” is a thing atypical for him: too dry, too restrained, almost non-fiction on the verge of wetmentary. Either the unfulfilled prophecy, or the actual scenario that can still be realized - amended by “Email, DVD, Internet, CCTV cameras, satellite phones, products with GMOs, laser surgery, satellite television” and other miracles of science and technology, which the author mentions in the preface. But the main thing is the verdict of the British, their indecision, self -doubt, the inability to make vital decisions without an extreme occasion. It doesn’t sound too flattering and not quite fair, but what can you do - you won’t throw a word out of the song.

Neil Gaiman. The Sandman. Sanding man. Dream catchers. SPb.: ABC, M.: ABC-Atticus, 2019. Translation from the English Ephraim Liechtenstein

“Dreams”, published in the original language in 1999, were supposed to become an anniversary publication dedicated to the decade of the launch of the series “The Sandman. Sanding man. " This, if anyone does not know, is the same comic book cycle, thanks to which Neil Gaiman earned a reputation as almost the best storyteller of modern Britain long before the “American gods”, “Coralines” and “star dust”. Our publishers position the book as a “graphic novel in the traditional sense of the word”, that is, not a comic as such, but “richly illustrated publication” according to a more familiar classification. With illustrations here, everything is really ok, but it is worth immediately clarifying: “Dream catchers”, of course, in no way romance - neither in volume nor in composition. A rather compact text, a small story, which in the collection of a standard format would take eight to ten pages from the strength. But released by an individual publication, on thick paper of excellent quality, with illustrations of the Japanese artist Yosili Ampagon, turned into an art object, a separate work of art and a valuable object of collecting.

Artist: Yoshitaka Amano/https://azbooka.ru

“Dream Cathers” enter the conditional cycle about the sandman, sand man, morpheus, the lord of the country of dreams, visions and fantasies. At the same time, it is a completely independent “History in the Japanese Spirit”, a parable about the young monk and a werewolf fox, about love and self-sacrifice. Stylization for Kaidan, a Japanese oral story about the supernatural - Neil Gaiman only added moralization and beautifully rounded the finale, which the authentic tales of the country of the rising sun can rarely boast. The story would have remained an elegant trinket, if not for the drawings of the Yositaki Acamano - the Japanese artist works with traditional folk motives much more inventive and diverse than the author of the text. At the same time, the “catchers ...” is a curious example of modern literary hoax. In the afterword, Gaiman admits that his short story is the literary processing of the story “Fox, monk and mikado of all night dreams” from the collection of St. U. Eston “Ancient Japanese Tales”. The problem is that such a collection, like its compiler, does not exist in nature. As the meticulous Mikhail Nazarenko found out, the author of comments on all Sandman volumes, Gaiman came up with this book when he urgently needed to write an afterword on the first edition of “Dream Solves”, sincerely believing that few would take his game for a pure coin. And he realized that he was brutally miscalculated when the correspondents filled him with questions about the original source - in no case should be underestimated the reader's gullibility and simple -mindedness.

And finally, the fact is from the category of curioses: do you know who the author brings gratitude in the afterword in 1999? You will never guess: the producer Harvey Weinstein, who aroused his interest in modern Japanese culture and ordered him the English text for Princess Mononoka, which was about to go to American film distribution. The question of what the writer had to do in order to get this order, we will leave at the brackets - and yet what a deck is bizarrely tossed, as Mikhail Afanasevich rightly remarked.