Table Of ContentANTHOLOGY OF EUROPEAN SPECULATIVE FICTION
Edited by Cristian Tamaş and Roberto Mendes
ANTHOLOGY OF EUROPEAN SPECULATIVE FICTION
1
ANTHOLOGY OF EUROPEAN SPECULATIVE FICTION
AUTHORS
Ian R. MacLeod (England)
Jetse de Vries (Netherlands)
Regina Catarino (Portugal)
Liviu Radu (Romania)
Carmelo Rafala (Italy)
Cristian Mihail Teodorescu (Romania)
Diana Pinguicha (Portugal)
Hannu Rajaniemi (Finland)
Vladimir Arenev (Ukraine)
Philip Harris (England)
Dănuţ Ungureanu (Romania)
Aliette de Bodard (France)
EDITED BY
Cristian Tamaş and Roberto Mendes
PUBLISHED BY
ISF Magazine and Europa SF
OTHER CREDITS
Cover Design by Saul Bottcher, Copy Editing and ebook formatting by Elizabeth K. Campbell, Slush Reading by Raquel
Margato and Alexandra Rolo, PDF preparation by Roberto Mendes.
COVER ILLUSTRATION
The artwork is named "Galactus" by George Munteanu; ©George Munteanu (all rights reserved), reproduced by the
author's permission.
Copyrights held by various Authors.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction by Cristian Tamaş and Roberto Mendes 4
Ian R. MacLeod (England) - The Dead Orchards 6
Jetse de Vries (Netherlands) - Transcendent Express 16
Regina Catarino (Portugal) - Memory Recall 27
Liviu Radu (Romania) - Digits are Cold Numbers are Warm 34
Carmelo Rafala (Italy) - Repeat Performances 50
Cristian Mihail Teodorescu (Romania) - Bing Bing Larissa 63
Diana Pinguicha (Portugal) – Rebellion 74
Hannu Rajaniemi (Filnand) - The Server and the Dragon 82
Vladimir Arenev (Ukraine) - The Royal Library 90
Dănuţ Ungureanu – News from a Dwarf Universe 100
Philip Harris (England) - Only Friends 104
Aliette de Bodard (France) – Starsong 113
About the Editors 128
About ISF Magazine 129
About Europa SF 130
Anthology Sponsors – Indie Book Launcher 132
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FIRST PUBLICATION CREDITS
“The Dead Orchards” by Ian R. MacLeod: first published in Weird Tales – 1994
“Transcendent Express” by Jetse de Vries: first published in Hub Magazine – 2007
“Starsong” by Aliette de Bodard: first published in Asimov’s – August 2012
“Digists are Cold, Numbers are Warm” by Liviu Radu: first published in ISF Magazine – 2012
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INTRODUCTION BY
CRISTIAN TAMAŞ AND ROBERTO MENDES
European SF anthologies are rare as pink diamonds, and it seems that American editors have been more interested
in collecting and presenting European SF stories than European editors are (for instance, The SFWA European Hall of
Fame: Sixteen Contemporary Masterpieces of Science Fiction from the Continent (2008), edited by James Morrow
and Kathryn Morrow and featuring James Gunn, Donald Wolfheim, and others). It’s as though someone is a
European only from a distance—from America, for example!
Who inhabits Europe ? Europeans? Well, yes and no. Europe is inhabited by Germans, Frenchmen, Britons (from
time to time, depending on the continent’s weather), Italians, Spaniards, Portuguese, Swedes, Poles, Dutchmen,
Russians, Ukrainians, and so on. We’re Europeans only when we’re visiting other continents, but not at home.
There are exceptions to the rule that European editors are uninterested in European SF, including Austrian editor
Franz Rottensteiner (View from Another Shore, 1973), French editor Olivier Raynaud (under the pen name of Richard
D. Nolane, working with American publisher DAW Books, Terra SF : The Year's Best European SF (1981), and Terra
Science Fiction II: The Year's Best European SF (1983)), and Spanish editor Domingo Santos with the Ciencia ficcion
europea (1982). But the general trend remains.
What’s the reason for this lack of interest? Why do we only have a few European SF anthologies compiled by
European editors? Why should a culturally diverse continent like Europe being incapable of finding a common way to
publish its own SF on regular basis? Or, even better, collecting that fiction in English, so that more readers can read
it?
Perhaps it’s explained by the fact that Europe has a political union and a common market, but not a cultural common
market or a publishing common market, and because it’s divided linguistically and culturally.
Why do we need to start presenting European SF in English? Let’s face it, English is spoken by a majority of
Europeans and by most of the World—there is a huge market for English-language literature and for works in English
translation! Being pragmatic, we have to use the idiom that’s understood by the European majority if we want to
offer access to as many readers as possible. From Europe to the World!
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We believe that this is exactly the right moment to contribute to a common European SF. This is the time!
In order to start developing this project, ISF and Europa SF, two new and ambitious projects, decided to step in and
launch a new European SF anthology comprising authors coming from all over Europe—England, France, Italy,
Netherlands, Portugal, Finland, Romania, and Ukraine—collecting a truly representative sampling of European
speculative fiction. Would we like to have more stories and more countries represented? Of course—and we will
too, you’ll see!
ISF is a quarterly publication with a mandate to publish (for free download) science fiction, fantasy, and horror that
was (i) originally written in languages other than English (but always published in ISF in English translation), as well as
(ii) fiction that comes from non-traditional sources (geographically speaking) or (iii) that has a particularly
internationalist orientation. You can read all about us on our page (http://internationalsf.wordpress.com/) and
elsewhere on the Web, or in the February issue of Locus Magazine.
Europa SF (www.scifiportal.eu) was conceived as an English-language portal of news and information from and for
European fandom—a site that provides a comprehensive, permanent, real-time mirror of European SF&F products,
events, and activities.
Together we want to offer to European writers the chance to be read by the entire world! So wait no more to get to
know some of the most exciting authors we have—from newcomers to award winners! We promise you this: your
time will not be wasted!
This Anthology Is brought to you by ISF MAGAZINE (nominated for an ESFS Award for Best Magazine) and EUROPA
SF (nominated for an ESFS Award for Best Site)
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The Dead Orchards
Ian R MacLeod
I used to live in a house made from the bones of the City. Stones plundered from the dreams of palaces
peered from every wall. It was too big for me alone, yet I rarely sought any company other than that of my servants.
Forgotten rooms reached into tunnels, doorways opened on rotting boards. But there was still a core where a
tarnished kind of luxury flourished. This was my home, and the living was as easy as it could be in this City, which is
to say that my suffering was less than that of many others.
Sometimes when my solitude became a burden I used to wander the streets searching for some female from
whom the City had yet to drain the last dregs of grace. A difficult quest, but I had my successes. I would draw my
guest back to my house with the necessary threats or promises, filling it with the silvered clash of china, the fragile
aromas of good food. And when the feast had ended and contentment played on the air, when my guest sat on her
golden chair and all past life was an ugly dream, I would offer her one last luxury: a glass of the clearest water drawn
from a well deep in the foundations of my house. Pure water in this City where the sewers foul the river and the
river feeds the wells. Crystalline water in a crystal glass.
The goblet would rise in hands I had scented and cleansed, the water would tremble on the beveled rim. And
after it had touched those delicate lips, after the shapely throat had moved to swallow, the hand would fall, the glass
would shatter, the eyes would blink once, then widen forever. For the clear water was invisibly polluted by the
mutterings of some ancient spell. It caused a living paralysis for which, in all my experiments, I could discover no
release, least of all death.
Once, I used to take endless pleasure in seeing my guest sitting motionless, clothed in whatever fairness
youth had granted her, with every muscle down to heart and lungs magically stilled, yet her mind alert, her senses
singing. After weeks of slow study, I would take a knife to her flesh, blowing the dust from her unblinking eyes that
she might better see the riches she contained. Each organ within was a gleaming jewel, strung like a wet necklace on
the bones beneath. Once, towards the end of my explorations, I found another life enclosed within the first. A child. I
cut the burden from its ropes of flesh and lifted it into the candlelight. But the eyes of the half-finished thing seemed
to stare at me, and I replaced it hurriedly in its mother’s belly.
Inevitably – and as with life itself – my guests didn’t keep their freshness forever. The spell allowed them to
retain thoughts, sensation and life, but putrescence is an unavoidable fact even amongst the truly living in this city.
Maggots eventually began to burrow the warm flesh. Gazing into the sockets of eyes that had run like tears, I used to
wonder if death ever came to my guests. Did they sense every moment of decay? Was there ever an end to their
pain? But could find no answer from those rotting lips, and eventually I would call my servants to take the stinking
burden from my sight and carry it to the dead orchards, there to dispose of it in the traditional way.
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Eventually, such diversions began to bore me. I found that although the human body is a rich and ornate
vessel, its variety is far from infinite. I came to treasure only the moment when the lips moistened and moved. When
the delicate throat swallowed. When the glass fell. When the eyes widened with that last moment of knowledge.
That was all: when the shadow passed, and when certainty began.
There came a time when I had not left my home in months. But boredom brought restlessness, and the
horrors of the City beyond my door sometimes seemed less that the atrocity of my own company. One day, in the
bland depths of my discontent, I went out. I had been long away from this City. I was surprised that life still passed so
busily in these streets filled with mud. My senses clogged with the smell of it, with the separate ugliness of every
face. I shook my head when the beggars offered me their blood in bowls. I kicked and stamped at the little creatures
that crawled towards me from the gutters.
I took a path that led by the fringes of the dead orchards, passing many on the way who pulled, dragged or
carried burdens in that same direction. I went that way without thinking, but as the hovels gave way to grey-green
grass and the little hill reared up before my steps, I wandered on amid the stained and sapless boughs. They were
sharp as spears, and similarly blackened with the blood of their victims. The trees were a deathly army, proffering
trophies for the delectation of whatever Gods gaped down from the dismal sky. Some of the corpses were still fresh
enough from their impaling to have kept a trace of character in their sunken eyes, or at least to make their sex and
age discernable. But the majority had shrivelled to leathery anonymity, preserved by the parasitic tendrils of the
trees as withered sketches of humanity. The branches pierced rags of flesh. Arms lifted and waved in the stinking
breeze. Here, somewhere amid the leafless avenues, were the remains of my guests, doubtless roughly pinioned by
my servants with their usual lack of care...perhaps dead, perhaps dreaming, perhaps still screaming voicelessly with
pain.
I found a corpse that somehow still retained a shabby parody of young femineity. Several tumescences were
thriving on it, green, apple-like parasitic growths of the tree itself, one a grey parody of a breast, another swelling on
the shrivelled remains of the tongue, forcing apart the jaw. The wind struck up a keener note, dipping the branches
all around, setting limbs clicking and bobbing, heads nodding. The woman-corpse tilted up, her mossy backbone
curving as though still tormented by whatever agonies had brought her to this place. I turned and quickly made my
way back through the trees, towards the life of the market.
The market awnings flapped their damp wings. Those who lived and needed jostled with those who had
forgotten all but the fears and habits of life. The smell of rotting meat and vegetables was heavy. That day, in what
passed, I think, for the season where there is more cold and less rain, I had already eaten and the food had lodged in
my stomach, an unwelcome but tolerated guest. Everywhere there were shouts and squabbles. I was swept along
and almost off my feet as a fresh basket appeared, dripping mud and the offal of white-eyed fish from the river. The
crowds were almost as sickening as what was on offer. I felt glad of my wealth, my gold, my servants. I smiled at the
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thought, remembering why I had come. And as I smiled my eyes settled on a face that was part of the crowd, yet
separate from everything. My shock was immediate and intense. Even under the grime and rags, I could hardly
believe that chance had brought me this close to beauty.
She had a basket wrapped around her filthy arm. In it, as I drew close, tumbling rickety stalls and people
aside, I saw the remnants of a loaf of bread, grey green with mould. She turned with slow and perfect wonder
towards me. Heart shaped face, eyes of tremulous green. She could almost have been a child, had the city not
forgotten true childhood in the age before it remembered death.
Determined that she would be my guest that night, I stopped her and offered money, grasping an oily sleeve
that went slick though my fingers, grasping tighter and again. Her delicate arms scrabbled in fear, weak claws
reaching for my face. I drew out coins and pushed them towards her fluttering palms, not caring how they fell. They
fountained from my hands. Those around us began scramble in the mud, raking the gold from the ooze. At last she
caught a coin in her palm and drew it to her lips, touching it to her perfect teeth. I offer this, I said, and more. Her
eyes widened and blinked, clear pools in a world of mud. She nodded. She understood. I kept my hand on her in case
she should run, but in truth I sensed within her that fatalism that is part of this City. I never bothered to enquire
about her background. No doubt others knew her but were too blind or ignorant to see her beauty. So be it; this City
has withered everything down to a single moment of need, endlessly repeating itself. I took her hand and she let me
lead her away under the leaning walls. Through the tunnel of a toppled tower where dark things whispered to the
echo of our breath. To the place that was my home.
My servants pointed and shivered excitedly as they gathered for a sight of my prize. I chased them away to
with curses and threats and led her quickly up the wide stairs past rotting tapestries and green statues, along
corridors streaked with decay. Some emotion caused her to cry. The tears washed bands down her face. I asked her
name and she sobbed it through the bars of clear skin: it was a thing that fell uselessly between us. I changed it to
Caitlin.
Caitlin. I drew water from the purest butts of rainwater, straining the soup of spiders and leaves. I warmed it
with magics to fill a rusted marble tub. I stripped her of her rags and bathed her. As the water clouded, she grew
glistening white. Touching the wonder of her flesh with my own ragged claws, I could hardly believe that we shared
humanity. As I dried her, I saw that Caitlin was like none of my guests who had gone before. She was perfection. I
anointed her with scents and oils. I seated her before the brightest, warmest fire and combed the knots and lice
from her wet hair, working through and through until it sparked and glowed to the touch. And I dressed her in the
best fabric I could muster. Velvet that still retained its colour in patches, seams of lace that the damp hadn’t yet
unravelled. I stood her before a mirror, and once again she cried. And as I gazed upon her my own eyes stung as
though with the touch of flames.
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