Kuunmong: The Cloud Dream of the Nine KIM Manjung Translated by James S. Gale Kuunmong – literally “Nine Cloud Dream” or “The Cloud Dream of the Nine” – has been an immensely popular work in Korea for centuries. Originally written in about 1689, it is hailed as one of the earliest works of literary prose […]
Aphrodite YAMADA Masaki Translated by Edward Lipsett This important work of Japanese science fiction presents the story of Yūichi, a youth who escapes the regimented world of Japanese society for the beauty and freedom of Aphrodite, a floating island city built by the visionary Mr. Caan. Excited by the seemingly limitless potential of Aphrodite and […]
The Woman Next Door MUKŌDA Kuniko Translated by A. Reid Monroe-Sheridan Lonely people trapped in webs of their own design, seeking hope, love, forgiveness, validation… Five stories reveal the innermost hopes and fears of ordinary women, and men, facing the demands of others and of themselves in cool marriage and cold betrayal, exploring new avenues […]
I ran a commercial translation and production company called Intercom Ltd. for several decades, at one time with offices in Fukuoka, Nagoya and Tokyo and employing about a dozen people plus innumerable freelancers. After doing that for so many years I began to grow bored translating essentially the same thing again and again, and decided […]
Administrator MAYUMURA Taku Translated by Edward Lipsett Administrator, or Shiseikan in Japanese, took the Japanese SF community by storm when first published in 1974. Unlike traditional space opera, it pushed technology into the background to present a compelling portrait of colonial governors, the Administrators, trapped between the conflicting demands of Federation government, native inhabitants, and […]
The Cthulhu Helix UMEHARA Katsufumi Translated by Jim Hubbert "DNA contains two types of base pair sequences. Exons are meaningful templates for making proteins. Introns are meaningless, random sequences. Yet introns account for ninety-five percent of human DNA. Why is such a huge proportion of the genome reserved for useless code?" What if all that […]
Klar always wanted to be a Dreamer. Ever since he was a little boy he would focus on an ant, a leaf, a pebble, willing it to change into something else. At night before he slept he would stare into the darkness, willing a light to shine, or a sword. Nothing ever came of it, […]
Chapter 1 The alarm bells clanged her awake. Fire! Sergeant Jabari leapt to her feet, her hands pulling on her leather jacket and boots automatically. She rushed out of the barracks, joining a dozen other women awakened by the alarm in the pre-dawn gloom. Rasha called down from the tower: “It’s over near the Boreas […]
– 1 – “My usual, please, Master van der Kerk.” “Mistress Chuli, good to see you again,” replied the man behind the counter. “That’d be a block of Gouda and a block of my own Ambroli, right?” Chuli smiled, white teeth bright against dark brown skin. “Yes. I love your Ambroli… can’t find it anywhere […]
Bortras wiped the sweat off his forehead with the back of his arm, the clean one. Over the years he’d learned how to keep one section of one forearm relatively dry and clean, especially for that purpose, even though the rest of him was usually wet and covered in filth. He no longer bothered with […]