InterNova #2, a theme issue about contemporary science fiction from Greece, has perhaps been the most noted issue since the relaunch of our magazine so far. Our friends from the Science Fiction Club of Athens have surprised readers with the remarkably high literary quality of their stories.

It seems that the gems of the Greek science fiction production are more and more recognized on the other shore of the Atlantic Ocean too. As veterans of the science fiction field know, the Nebula Awards, the genre’s most prestigious literary awards, bestowed by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, have for many decades been exclusively reserved for writers from the English speaking world, until the ban has finally been broken by French writer Aliette de Bodard in 2012. Nonetheless, it’s still a rare achievement that two Greek writers have been nominated for Nebulas in recent years: Eugenia Triantafyllou with “The Giants of the Violet Sea” (Uncanny, September/October 2021) for best novella in 2022 and Natalia Theodoridou with “The Prince of Salt and the Ocean’s Bargain” (Uncanny, September 2022) for best novelette this year, the latter also for best game writing with her work on Vampire: The Masquerade — Sins of the Sires.

Greek writers have also been present in English language print and online media: Natalia Theodoridou with “In April, the Dead” in Khoreo and “Moons We Can Circumnavigate in One Day, or the Space Probe Love Story” in Lightspeed ; InterNova author Antony Paschos with “Born in ’84” in James Gunn’s Ad Astra, “Three Stars to Guide a 32-bit Ghost” in ZNB Presents; “Pinebark” in Penumbric and “A Fair Exchange” at Bards and Sages; Avra Margariti with “Death Comes for the Sword Virgins” in Strange Horizons; Madalena Daleziou with “To Give Moon Milk to A Lover” in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction and “Under the Mountain’s Shadow” in Tree and Stone; Christine Lucas with “Last Call: Acheron” in Kaleidotrope and Eugenia Triantafyllou with “Salt Water” at Tor.com.

The engaged German small publisher Hirnkost, winner of the Deutsche Verlagspreis (German publisher award) in 2022, has recently published an anthology with fantastic stories from Israel. Zion’s Fiction, edited by Sheldon Teitelbaum and Emanuel Lottem and with an introduction by science fiction veteran Robert Silverberg, presents a wide variety of stories by sixteen writers.

Apart from Guy Hasson, Nir Yaniv (also an accomplished musician) and the internationally successful Lavie Tidhar, who have all over the years contributed stories to Nova and InterNova, the authors are Shimon Adaf, Pesakh Amnuel, Rotem Baruchin, Yael Furman, Elana Gomel, Gail Hareven, Keren Landsman, Sayvon Liebrecht, Nitay Peretz, Mordechai Sasson, Nava Semel, Gur Shomron and Eyal Teler.

The Deutsche Science Fiction Preis (German Science Fiction Award), bestowed by the largest German science fiction club SFCD since 1985, is one of the most prestigious science fiction awards for the German language area. The jury has recently announced its nominations for the best short stories and novels of 2022.

Short stories

C. M. Dyrnberg »Fast Forward«
Christoph Grimm »Die Summe aller Teile«
Michael K. Iwoleit »Briefe an eine imaginäre Frau«
Thorsten Küper »Hayes‘ Töchter und Söhne«
Aiki Mira »Die Grenze der Welt«
Helen Obermeier »Der blassblaue Punkt«
Yvonne Tunnat »Morsche Haut«

InterNova editor Michael K. Iwoleit’s novella, which has initially been written in English, will be published in the first printed issue of the new InterNova later this year.

Novels

R. M. Amerein Roboter: Fading Smoke, Atlantis-Verlag
Andreas Brandhorst Ruf der Unendlichkeit, Fischer TOR
Kris Brynn A. R. T. – Coup zwischen den Sternen«, Knaur
Theresa Hannig Pantopia, Fischer TOR
Sven Haupt Wo beginnt die Nacht, Eridanus-Verlag
Hans-Jürgen Kugler Freier Fall, Hirnkost
Timo Leibig Reaktor, Belle-Époque-Verlag
Aiki Mira Neongrau, Polarise
Aiki Mira Titans Kinder, p.machinery
Jol Rosenberg Das Geflecht. An der Grenze, ohneohren-Verlag
Andreas Suchanek Interspace One, Piper
Nils Westerboer Athos 2643, Klett-Cotta Hobbit-Presse

InterNova editor Michael K. Iwoleit’s novella “Briefe an eine imaginäre Frau”, published in Nova #31, has been nominated for the Kurd Lasswitz Preis, one of the most renowned German science fiction awards, in the category of best story of the year. The original version of this tale, which has initially been written in English, will be included in the first printed issue of InterNova, to be published in the second half of this year by p.machinery, along with two longer tales by Tetiana Trofusha (Germany/Ukraine) and Guy Hasson (Israel).