by Christoph Grimm
Translated by Michael K. Iwoleit
It seems like a hardly explainable contradiction:
Perry Rhodan, a science fiction dime novel series, is weekly published since 1961. The latest issues are reliably available in each station bookshop and even in the magazine racks of all major supermarket and gas station chains. With such an ever-present giant of genre literature science fiction in Germany should be in good shape. You would think so.
For science fiction minded readers, however, the visit of a bookshop is frequently sobering. A single bookshelf – in smaller shops likely mingled with fantasy titles – is very often all that is conceded to science fiction literature. Mind you: to the whole of science fiction literature. Trade publishers such as Heyne, Fischer Tor or Piper rely on seasoned classics and franchises from abroad, some established names and now and then the latest Hugo and Nebula award winners. Science fiction from Germany seems to be limited, apart from the latest Perry Rhodan issues, to Andreas Eschbach and Andreas Brandhorst, maybe Brandon Q. Morris, Philip P. Peterson and Joshua Tree.
The German science fiction literature market of course not only consists of just a handful of people. If you leave the bookshops with their rather unrewarding shelves aside and take an afternoon time to surf the German Web you will discover a remarkably active scene. Small publishers such as Atlantis, p. machinery, Eridanus, Hirnkost, Golkonda, Plan 9, Saphir im Stahl, ohneohren or Wurdack have focused on science fiction. Nova, Exodus, Queer*Welten, Weltenportal and Future Fiction Magazine are regularly published periodicals. Along with anthologies produced by the already mentioned publishers they lay the groundwork for several hundred new science fiction stories published each year.
The “success” of German science fiction, however, is limited, to say the least. It’s like a fishbowl floating on an ocean of literature and only occasionally observed by outsiders. Or to put it less flowery: If a German science fiction novel sales more than a few hundred copies it may already be called a success.
It has been speculated a lot about the reasons why science fiction has such a rough ride in Germany. I assume it’s a cross-generational characteristic of Germans to think in categories. While it’s true that other countries draw a certain line between serious and entertaining literature as well, it seems to be a typical German quirk to see an insurmountable gap between both. Science Fiction is thus classified as entertainment and pigeon-holed into the same category as Star Trek, Star Wars and of course Perry Rhodan: action-packed space adventures, maybe sometimes appealingly written with solid story-telling skills, but based on a blunt good and evil schematic far removed from reality. It can’t be denied that many works of the genre seem, at first sight, to be no more than light, escapist entertainment, and some don’t try to be more than that. An intelligent comment on the present age, as American literary critics have identified in the works of Ursula K. Le Guin, Ray Bradbury or Daniel Keyes, to name just a few, seems to be unthinkable in categorized Germany. The idea that the Federal Chancellor or the Federal President of Germany would praise an outstanding science fiction work – as Barack Obama did with Cixin Liu’s novels or the life’s work of Ray Bradbury – might well be categorized as “fantasy”.
This thinking in categories common in Germany has not escaped large publishing companies either. To avoid associations with the adventures of Captain Kirk, Luke Skywalker or Perry Rhodan, especially novels with near future scenarios as well as social and technological speculations tend to be published without any reference to the “science fiction” label. Noteworthy examples are the bestsellers Corpus Delicti by Juli Zeh, Qualityland by Marc-Uwe Kling, Blackout by Marc Elsberg, Das Erwachen and Oxygen, both by Andreas Brandhorst, Der Schwarm by Frank Schätzing oder Mirror by Karls Olsberg. The blurbs announce them as “thriller”, “business thriller”, “climate thriller” – a favorite among novel readers that unfailingly attracts attention – or simply as “novel”.
With regard to the quality of German science fiction it would not be sufficient to refer to Theodore Sturgeon’s law that 90 % of everything is crap. Even the acceptable 5, 10 or 20% of the published novels and short stories make it seem as if not only critics and readers, but also the authors have internalize the thinking in categories. Works with ambitious ideas and thoughts often lack accessibility. Entertaining novels, on the other hand, tend to circumvent profundity of thought. If there is one thing missing in much of German science fiction literature, then it’s the balancing act of combining inspiring thought experiments with an entertaining narrative style, suitable for a mass audience.
But here and there works like this show up.
Aiki Mira Neongrau
The novel is set in a fictitious Hamburg of the year 2112. The “Duel of the Legends”, a popular e-sports event, is due. The local glam gamer siblings Rahmani are the glamorous heroes of a whole generation. Go „Stuntboi“ Kazumi, a lower class teenager, is given a chance to work at the competition venue, the “Floating Arena”. There Go is drawn into the conflicts of the siblings, whose lifes behind the influencer facade are anything but glamorous. As if this wasn’t enough, a bomb attack shatters the event and reveals dark deeds.
A plot summary may hint at a thriller-like suspense novel set in an entertainment sector undermined by corruption. In this regard Aiki Mira succeeded in writing a well-structured novel that, on the other hand, sometimes runs a little too evenly. I assume, however, that Aiki Mira’s goal was not to tell a highly suspenseful story. The bomb attack and the games only seem to provide plot vehicles to follow, for a limited time, a whole ensemble of characters whose paths inevitably cross. Neongrau is kind of a future Hamburg sightseeing tour with a focus on individual life stories.
With a rather distanced narrative style Aiki Mira manages to do justice to a relatively large number of characters. Aiki Mira may be our tour guide but we are only accompanied to the locations and characters. There’s a certain focus on Go ‚Stuntboi‘ Kazumi, whose search for his identity as a gender-fluid person is one of the topics of the novel, but other characters such as Go’s parents Tayo and Ren, the game celebrities Rahmani and the mysterious ELLL are also elaborately depicted in their own story lines.
Noteworthy is the portrayal and especially the literary approach of the year 2112. Aiki Mira has not contented herself with just weaving in a few basic data and technical gadgets, but sets the readers without much explanation into a speculative future. Concise explanations are only provided where Aiki Mira deemed them as unavoidable to keep the challenged reader from being confused. The overall view of the world outside of Hamburg is remarkably coherent, though somewhat sketchy and forces the reader to fill in the blanks.
Neongrau not just claims to tell of the future, it actually does so. This is not our world anymore. It’s not even the world of our children and grandchildren. It’s the world of our great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren. Since Aiki Mira is, as far as I know, not blessed with prophetic gifts, the year 2112 of the novel is of course a speculation. But as Andreas Eschbach has once correctly remarked, science fiction can’t make a claim to prophecy, but is actually a comment on the present. Neongrau addresses a lot of topics, none of which becomes dominant. I assume that her intention was to show how everything is connected: the problems of a world that is as densely networked as never before, but also marked by increasing distancing; the truth behind glamorous delusions; the complete disillusionment about the future of a dying world; the search for one’s identity. This multifacetedness is what makes this coldly and aloofly written portrait of a, from our point of view, alien humanity so fascinating and far superior to conventional genre literature: no superficial considerations, but deep reflections, based on a thorough observation of our present, about where we – the world, Germany, the society, the individual – might be hundred years from now. The book provides food for thought and draws the reader into a roller-coaster of fascination, some hope, regret and revulsion.
Neongrau demands close attention and active engagement with what we read. Readers not put off by this are rewarded with an extraordinary work which in my opinion is not only a fascinating science fiction novel, but an impressive piece of literature.
Sven Haupt Niemandes Schlaf
A few decades into the future: General Baker is flabbergasted as his missing swarm of electric hornets molds a huge rose out of fresh meat in a cold warehouse. As the military in collaboration with AI expert Bettina Calvin try to get to the bottom of the drone’s strange behavior, people all over the world, especially in the giant capital, suddenly seem to be obsessed with flowers. Sculptures, memes, graffiti – flowers are everywhere. At the same time in the vast hospital of the influential PharmaCorp multinational: The bioacoustics work group of Professor Scholz, among them the accomplished IT professional Tuomas Lauri and Lou, discover in the hospital’s toilet tanks strange jellyfish- and flower-like beings. A young woman named Eva, who accidentally gets involves with the work group, seem to somehow influence these flower beings as they organize in her presence to more complex units. For both investigator groups a race against time begins as the flowers effect ever more strange and profound changes of reality.
Sven Haupt has already shown in his previous novels that he doesn’t care much for genre boundaries and established conventions. The inclined readership can of course expect to be entertained, but also to be challenged. His approach reminds of progressive music. Haupt’s works sometimes read like a Pink Floyd song sounds: unusual, whimsical, intricate – but beguilingly beautiful.
The world depicted in Niemandes Schlaf is bleak and seems to be the end result, carried to their extremes, of developments that can already be observed today: People live, estranged from nature and direct contact with others, at close quarters in a huge city, dulled by the constant media stream of government and multinationals that choke off any chance of a deep transformation and evolution in favor of the unswerving status quo of the system.
The novel is retrospectively told by Lou who alternately observes the events from the perspective of the bioacoustics group and the military, referring on the one hand to her own memories, on the other hand to the ubiquitous security footage of a completely monitored world. As already noted in the first chapter, Lou is not alive anymore. How she died and why she is still able to report the events is revealed at the end.
It’s not the least the ending that roots this in parts seemingly fantastic, whimsical and spiritually grounded story in a basically conceivable reality – while at the same time distancing itself from it. Niemandes Schlaf does not claim to forecast the future, but is deeply engaged with the present, a possible future and inspiring intellectual approaches: “It’s not important whether a story is believed. It’s much more important that it is told, because nothing is ever forgotten in the universe. A told story gains in reality, that’s the crucial point.”
Nils Westerboer Athos 2643
In the far year 2643: On the Neptune moon Athos a monk of the order of cenobites loses his life. No other than the monastery’s life-sustaining artificial intelligence is suspected to have killed him. The inquisitor Rüd Kartheiser, an expert for interrogating artificial intelligences, is charged with the investigation. He is supported by his holographic assistant Zack, who is devoted to Rüd due to her strict system protocols. As the investigation reaches an impasse, Rüd realizes that he is more than ever dependent on Zack’s help. To exploit the full potential of his artificial assistant, he makes a fatal decision with regard to her security restrictions.
The Name of the Rose meets science fiction – this was the unanimous tenor of the press as it became known that director David Wnendt and his production company Seven Elephants are working on a screen adaption of Nils Westerboer’s novel (as recently reported, the principal filming has been completed by now, the movie is in post-production and planed to be theatrically released in 2027). The underlying crime story may suggest such a comparison, but to regard Athos 2643 simply as a science fiction variation of Umberto Eco’s worldwide bestseller would not do justice to the work.
The novel, that on its plot level skillfully combines science fiction and crime fiction, has much more to offer than is obvious at first sight. Like an onion that is peeled Westerboer’s book confronts its readers in each new chapter with reflections about ethics and morals, addresses the influence and use of technology, deals with speculative social developments and ultimately with humanity as such.
The novel is divided into two parts, composed of short chapters that revolve between a suspenseful story line and ramified reflections. The core theme of the first part is the meaning of freedom. The second part more specifically deals with the question how free someone can be who has no goals. These complex themes are concretized in the two main characters Rüd and Zack, initiating further thoughts in the reader.
In sum Westerboer’s Athos 2643 is, due to its dense world building and its suspensefully told story, a novel that you only reluctantly put down and only to take in what you have just read.
Christoph Grimm, born in 1985, lives surrounded by key clacking, page rustling and the yelling of children. Several of his short stories were published in literary magazines and anthologies. He has edited some anthologies himself and is since 2021 editor of the phantastic magazine Weltenportal. His homepage is at christophgrimm.com
Translator Michael K. Iwoleit was born in Düsseldorf in 1962 and lives in Wuppertal today. He was educated as a lab assistant and studied philosophy, sociology and German philology. Since 1989 he is a freelance writer, translator, editor and critic mostly in the science fiction field. Apart from his literary activities he has also worked as a copywriter for advertising and IT industry. He is the founder and editor of InterNova and was the co-founder and long-term fiction editor of its German sister magazine Nova.