Download or read book Nordic Visions The Best of Nordic Speculative Fiction written by John Ajvide Lindqvist and published by Rebellion Publishing Ltd. This book was released on 2023-10-10 with total page 295 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Unique Speculative Fiction Collection From The Nordic Countries Storytelling has been a major force in the Nordic countries for thousands of years, renowned for its particular sense of dark humour, featuring pacts with nature and a view of the world you seldom find in other places. Perhaps it is the freezing cold winter? The closeness to the Atlantic Ocean and the Arctic? Maybe it’s the huge ancient forests... Most have heard about Nordic crime fiction with its dark noir flare or the Icelandic Sagas. This anthology combines all that is unique about Nordic speculative fiction, from the darkest dystopian science fiction to terrifying horror. From the rational to the eccentric, these stories combine a deep sense of place with social criticism, themes of loneliness and the concern for humanity's impact on the wilderness. Featuring 16 stories from the best contemporary speculative authors from Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Iceland, and The Faroe Islands, including John Ajvide Lindqvist, Hannu Rajaniemi, Tor Åge Bringsværd and more, many of which are appearing in English for the very first time.

Download or read book Eurasian Monsters written by Margrét Helgadóttir and published by . This book was released on 2020-12-20 with total page 182 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Foxfire Wolfskin and Other Stories of Shapeshifting Women written by Sharon Blackie and published by September Publishing. This book was released on 2019-09-26 with total page 180 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Beautiful, rich short stories, drawing on myth and folklore to bring to life women's remarkable ability to transform themselves in the face of seemingly impossible circumstances. 'A book for all the wild women ... Foxfire, Wolfskin is simply the most perfect thing. I love each and every placement of each word. Love the wildness, the shapeshifting, the fearsomeness of it.' Jackie Morris, co-author of The Lost Words ' She lived fully, my fox, and I envied her with all my heart. I wanted to dance with her, sister or lover, across the snow-clad vastness of this land. Together, we'd create the Northern Lights. For that is what foxes do racing over the fells, whipping up the snow with their tails, the friction of it sending up sparks into the midnight sky. This is what makes the aurora's glow. Revontulet , we call it: foxfire.' Charged with drama and beauty, this memorable collection by a master storyteller weaves a magical world of possibility and power from female myths of physical renewal, creation and change. It is an extraordinary immersion into the bodies and voices, mindscapes and landscapes, of the shapeshifting women of our native folklore. Drawing on myth and fairy tales found across Europe from Croatia to Sweden, Ireland to Russia, these stories are about coming to terms with our animal natures, exploring the ways in which we might renegotiate our fractured relationship with the natural world, and uncovering the wildness and wilderness within. Beautifully illustrated by Helen Nicholson, Foxfire, Wolfskin and Other Stories of Shapeshifting Women is Blackie's first collection of short stories. 'Sharon Blackie has wrought a new-old magic for our times: glorious, beautiful, passionate myths. They show who we could have been, and they give us a glimpse of a world-that-could-be.' Manda Scott, author of A Treachery of Spies and Boudica 'A deeply evocative and haunting collection ... Part rally cry, part warning, part manifesto and all parts enchanting, Sharon Blackie's Foxfire, Wolfskin is a deeply evocative and haunting collection. I want to press this powerful book into the hands of everyone I know and say listen. ' Holly Ringland, author of The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart

Download or read book European Science Fiction 1 written by Olivier Paquet and published by Future Fiction. This book was released on 2021-06-24 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The anthology "Knowing the Neighbours" features a selection of Near-Future stories written by some of the best European Science Fiction authors from 15 countries and in translation from 11 languages. Europe has always been the forge of fantastic literature from True Story by Lucian and The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri, passing from Micromega by Voltaire and Somnium by Johannes Kepler, up to the novels of Jules Verne and the short stories by Primo Levi. Moreover, Europe has also been the founder of fundamental literary and artistic vanguards (like Futurism, Dadaism, and Surrealism) that deeply influenced our consciousness and thinking. That's why Europe has still a lot to offer to the future of humanity if only its stories would be translated more and more. As European readers and writers know so much more about American and English Science Fiction than their own national ones, it's about time to get to know our neighbours through the stories of our fellow European writers. Ranging from disaster tourism to the use of AIs to improve the quality of wine, from planned obsolescence in common objects to aesthetic benchmarks to value everything, from animatronics as new friends to climate change and community resilience, their stories will take you on a tour along the many shapes of European futures. TABLE OF CONTENTS 1 - Roseweed by Vasso Christou (Greece) 2 - Amber Queen by Olivier Paquet (France) 3 - Fragmentation by Tom Crosshill (Latvia) 4 - Planned Obsolescence by Nina Horvath (Austria) 5 - The Keresztury TVirs by Ivan Popov (Bulgaria) 6 - The Golden Nose by Neil Williamson (UK) 7 - Goal invariance under radical self-modification by Julie Novakova (Czech Republic) 8 - Beautymark by Linda De Santi (Italy) 9 - Petware by Uwe Post (Germany) 10 - The Naming Tree by J.S. Meresmaa (Finland) 11 - Any House in the Storm by Tais Teng (Netherlands) 12 - Lying Weather by Krystyna Chodorowska (Poland) 13 - Reaping Day by Anna Jakobsson Lund (Sweden) 14 - The Rescue by Margrét Helgadóttir (Norway) 15 - Team Memory by Carme Torras (Spain)

Download or read book Iraq 100 written by Hassan Blasim and published by Tor Books. This book was released on 2017-09-12 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of NPR's Best Books of 2017! A groundbreaking anthology of science fiction from Iraq that will challenge your perception of what it means to be “The Other” “History is a hostage, but it will bite through the gag you tie around its mouth, bite through and still be heard.”—Operation Daniel In a calm and serene world, one has the luxury of imagining what the future might look like. Now try to imagine that future when your way of life has been devastated by forces beyond your control. Iraq + 100 poses a question to Iraqi writers (those who still live in that nation, and those who have joined the worldwide diaspora): What might your home country look like in the year 2103, a century after a disastrous foreign invasion? Using science fiction, allegory, and magical realism to challenge the perception of what it means to be “The Other”, this groundbreaking anthology edited by Hassan Blasim contains stories that are heartbreakingly surreal, and yet utterly recognizable to the human experience. Though born out of exhaustion, fear, and despair, these stories are also fueled by themes of love, family, and endurance, and woven through with a delicate thread of hope for the future. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Download or read book The Last Voyage of Skidbladnir written by Karin Tidbeck and published by Tor Books. This book was released on 2019-01-14 with total page 32 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Award-winning author Karin Tidbeck presents a science fiction adventure of a mysterious spaceship on an interstellar voyage in The Last Voyage of Skidbladnir. Life on the transdimensional ship Skidbladnir is a strange one. The new janitor, Saga, finds herself in the company of an officious steward-bird, a surly and mysterious engineer, and the shadowy Captain. Who the odd passengers are, and according to what plan the ship travels, is unclear. Just when Saga has begun to understand the inner workings of Skidbladnir, she discovers that something is wrong. Skidbladnir is sick. And it’s up to her and the engineer to fix it. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Download or read book Feck Perfuction written by James Victore and published by Chronicle Books. This book was released on 2019-03-05 with total page 163 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "James Victore is a dangerous man. His ideas on optimizing your creativity, doing wow work and building a life that inspires will devastate your limits. And show you how to win. Read this book fast." —Robin Sharma, #1 bestselling author of The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari Begin before you're ready. Renowned designer and professional hell-raiser James Victore wants to drag you off your couch and throw you headfirst into a life of bold creativity. He'll guide you through all the twists, trials, and triumphs of starting your creative career, from finding your voice to picking the right moment to start a project (hint: It's now). Bring your biggest, craziest, most revolutionary ideas, and he will give you the kick in the pants you need to make them real. No matter what industry or medium you work in, this book will help you live, work, and create freely and fearlessly. Here are some dangerous ideas: • The things that made you weird as a kid make you great today. • Work is serious play. • Your ego can't dance. • The struggle is everything. • Freedom is something you take. • There ain't no rules. Take a risk. Try them out. Live dangerously. More praise for Feck Perfuction: "In James Victore's new book, he unequivocally proves why he is the master he is. In every chapter, he challenges and inspires the reader to reach for more, to try harder and to create our best selves. It is a magnificent and momentous experience. (All true)." —Debbie Millman, Host Design Matters "James Victore got famous creating tough posters that shook me to the core. He now does the same using the written word. To you." —Stefan Sagmeister, designer

Download or read book Sophie s World written by Jostein Gaarder and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2007-03-20 with total page 544 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One day Sophie comes home from school to find two questions in her mail: "Who are you?" and "Where does the world come from?" Before she knows it she is enrolled in a correspondence course with a mysterious philosopher. Thus begins Jostein Gaarder's unique novel, which is not only a mystery, but also a complete and entertaining history of philosophy.

Download or read book Lingua Cosmica written by Dale Knickerbocker and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 2018-05-04 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Anthologies, awards, journals, and works in translation have sprung up to reflect science fiction's increasingly international scope. Yet scholars and students alike face a problem. Where does one begin to explore global SF in the absence of an established canon? Lingua Cosmica opens the door to some of the creators in the vanguard of international science fiction. Eleven experts offer innovative English-language scholarship on figures ranging from Cuban pioneer Daína Chaviano to Nigerian filmmaker Olatunde Osunsanmi to the Hugo Award-winning Chinese writer Liu Cixin. These essays invite readers to ponder the themes, formal elements, and unique cultural characteristics within the works of these irreplaceable—if too-little-known—artists. Dale Knickerbocker includes fantasists and genre-benders pushing SF along new evolutionary paths even as they draw on the traditions of their own literary cultures. Includes essays on Daína Chaviano (Cuba), Jacek Dukaj (Poland), Jean-Claude Dunyac (France), Andreas Eschbach (Germany), Angélica Gorodischer (Argentina), Sakyo Komatsu (Japan), Liu Cixin (China), Laurent McAllister (Yves Meynard and Jean-Louis Trudel, Francophone Canada), Olatunde Osunsanmi (Nigeria), Johanna Sinisalo (Finland), and Arkady and Boris Strugatsky (Russia). Contributors: Alexis Brooks de Vita, Pawel Frelik, Yvonne Howell, Yolanda Molina-Gavilán, Vibeke Rützou Petersen, Amy J. Ransom, Hanna-Riikka Roine, Hanna Samola, Mingwei Song, Tatsumi Takayuki, Juan Carlos Toledano Redondo, and Natacha Vas-Deyres.

Download or read book Bodies of Water written by V. H. Leslie and published by . This book was released on 2017 with total page 164 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: London, 1871: After ministering to the wretched poor and fallen women of the city, Evelyn suffers a nervous breakdown, and is sent to the hydrotherapy establishment of Wakewater House to recuperate... Over a century later, the imposing building has been renovated into modern apartments, and Kirsten moves in, eager for the restorative calm of the Thames. But her neighbour Manon fills her head with the river's murky past. As Kirsten learns more of Wakewater's secrets, she is haunted by a solitary figure in the river, and becomes ever more desperate to understand what the water wants of her...

Download or read book Introduction to Nordic Cultures written by Annika Lindskog and published by UCL Press. This book was released on 2020-04-17 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Introduction to Nordic Cultures is an innovative, interdisciplinary introduction to Nordic history, cultures and societies from medieval times to today. The textbook spans the whole Nordic region, covering historical periods from the Viking Age to modern society, and engages with a range of subjects: from runic inscriptions on iron rings and stone monuments, via eighteenth-century scientists, Ibsen’s dramas and turn-of-the-century travel, to twentieth-century health films and the welfare state, nature ideology, Greenlandic literature, Nordic Noir, migration, ‘new’ Scandinavians, and stereotypes of the Nordic. The chapters provide fundamental knowledge and insights into the history and structures of Nordic societies, while constructing critical analyses around specific case studies that help build an informed picture of how societies grow and of the interplay between history, politics, culture, geography and people. Introduction to Nordic Cultures is a tool for understanding issues related to the Nordic region as a whole, offering the reader engaging and stimulating ways of discovering a variety of cultural expressions, historical developments and local preoccupations. The textbook is a valuable resource for undergraduate students of Scandinavian and Nordic studies, as well as students of European history, culture, literature and linguistics.

Download or read book Benjamin Ashwood written by Ac Cobble and published by . This book was released on 2016-05-26 with total page 406 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Life is simple in Ben¿s small town until an attack forces him to leave on an exciting journey. In his world, political, economic and military might create a system to keep the elite in power at the expense of the common man. As his knowledge and skill grows, he will have to decide if he wants to live within the system, flee from it or break it.

Download or read book The Whispering Muse written by Sjón and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2013-04-30 with total page 160 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Already celebrated far beyond his native Iceland, the novels of Sjón arrive on waves of praise from writers, critics, and readers worldwide. Sjón has won countless international awards and earned ringing comparisons to Borges, Calvino, and Iceland's other literary superstar, the Nobel Prize winner Halldór Laxness. The Whispering Muse is his masterpiece so far. The year is 1949 and Valdimar Haraldsson, an eccentric Icelander with elevated ideas about the influence of fish consumption on Nordic civilization, has had the extraordinary good fortune to be invited to join a Danish merchant ship on its way to the Black Sea. Among the crew is the mythical hero Caeneus, disguised as the second mate. Every evening after dinner he entrances his fellow travelers with the tale of how he sailed with the fabled vessel the Argo on its quest to retrieve the Golden Fleece. What unfolds is a slender but masterful, brilliant, and always entertaining novel that ranges deftly from the comic to the mythic as it weaves together tales of antiquity with the modern world in a voice so singular as to seem possessed.

Download or read book Girls Against God written by Jenny Hval and published by Verso Books. This book was released on 2020-10-20 with total page 239 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A genre-warping, time-travelling horror novel-slash-feminist manifesto for fans of Clarice Lispector and Jeanette Winterson. Welcome to 1990s Norway. White picket fences run in neat rows and Christian conservatism runs deep. But as the Artist considers her work, things start stirring themselves up. In a corner of Oslo a coven of witches begin cooking up some curses. A time-travelling Edvard Munch arrives in town to join a death metal band, closely pursued by the teenaged subject of his painting Puberty, who has murder on her mind. Meanwhile, out deep in the forest, a group of school girls get very lost and things get very strange. And awful things happen in aspic. Jenny Hval's latest novel is a radical fusion of queer feminist theory and experimental horror, and a unique treatise on magic, writing and art. "Strange and lyrical. Hval’s writing is surreal and rich with the grotesque banalities of human existence." —Publishers Weekly "The themes of alienation, queerness, and the unsettling nature of desire align Hval with modern mainstays like Chris Kraus, Ottessa Moshfegh, and Maggie Nelson." —Pitchfork

Download or read book Brown Girl in the Ring written by Nalo Hopkinson and published by Hachette UK. This book was released on 2001-03-15 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this "impressive debut" from award-winning speculative fiction author Nalo Hopkinson, a young woman must solve the tragic mystery surrounding her family and bargain with the gods to save her city and herself. (The Washington Post) The rich and privileged have fled the city, barricaded it behind roadblocks, and left it to crumble. The inner city has had to rediscover old ways -- farming, barter, herb lore. But now the monied need a harvest of bodies, and so they prey upon the helpless of the streets. With nowhere to turn, a young woman must open herself to ancient truths, eternal powers, and the tragic mystery surrounding her mother and grandmother. She must bargain with gods, and give birth to new legends.

Download or read book Memory of Water written by Emmi Itäranta and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2014-06-10 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An amazing, award-winning speculative fiction debut novel by a major new talent, in the vein of Ursula K. Le Guin. Global warming has changed the world’s geography and its politics. Wars are waged over water, and China rules Europe, including the Scandinavian Union, which is occupied by the power state of New Qian. In this far north place, seventeen-year-old Noria Kaitio is learning to become a tea master like her father, a position that holds great responsibility and great secrets. Tea masters alone know the location of hidden water sources, including the natural spring that Noria’s father tends, which once provided water for her whole village. But secrets do not stay hidden forever, and after her father’s death the army starts watching their town—and Noria. And as water becomes even scarcer, Noria must choose between safety and striking out, between knowledge and kinship. Imaginative and engaging, lyrical and poignant, Memory of Water is an indelible novel that portrays a future that is all too possible.

Download or read book The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2022 written by John Joseph Adams and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2022-11-01 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Award-winning, New York Times bestselling author and guest editor Rebecca Roanhorse and series editor John Joseph Adams select twenty pieces that represent the best examples of the form published the previous year and explore the ever-expanding and changing world of SFF today. Today’s readers of science fiction and fantasy have an appetite for stories that address a wide variety of voices, perspectives, and styles. There is an openness to experiment and pushing boundaries, combined with the classic desire to read about spaceships and dragons, future technology and ancient magic, and the places where they intersect. Contemporary science fiction and fantasy looks to accomplish the same goal as ever—to illuminate what it means to be human. With a diverse selection of stories chosen by series editor John Joseph Adams and guest editor Rebecca Roanhorse, The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2022 explores the ever-expanding and changing world of contemporary science fiction and fantasy.