Barjavel is indeed a great author, and "La nuit des temps" is his
masterpiece. Among his other novels, I have enjoyed "Le voyageur
imprudent", a novel about time travel, and "Ravage", a novel about
the fall of civilization.
In my nook of the woods, we also have some good SF writers, most
of them women. Elisabeth Vonarburg, in particular, has had novels
translated in English under the titles _The Silent City_ ("Le
silence dans la cité") and _Maerland Chronicles_ ("Chronique du pays
des mères").
This last one probably loses a lot in the translation. It is about
a society where women outnumber men by a certain order of magnitude
and thus has reversed grammatical rules concerning gender. Since
English mostly uses the neutral gender and that the plural of the
third person is "they" (in opposition to "ils" or "elles" in french),
the impact cannot be the same.
As for my readings, I've just started Neal Stephenson's _Cryptonomicon_
and then I have to read Robinson's _Green Mars_ I've just finished
Italo Calvino's _The Path to the Nest of Spiders_ which was good, even
if I agree with the author's foreword in thinking trhat it doesn't have
the finesse of his later writings. I've also recently finished Goerge
Orwell's _Animal Farm_ and that was great.
What's in the future? I don't know. Even if I still want to continue
reading SF, I am starting to feel a bit old for a lot of the novels
that I am reading, especially in Fantasy. This means that I am starting
to read mainstream litterature like Calvino and other authors which my
MA in French Litterature of a wife adore.
Jean-Louis Couturier
-----Original Message-----
From: Jean-Marc Chaton [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
>For the near future, I plan to reread Barjavel (I've bought the complete
>Anthology ISBN : 2258001390) This excellent SF writer (yes i'm biased) is
>the author, among other, of «La nuit des Temps» (silly english title: The
>Ice People). If you want to try what French SF is, read this one, it's out
>of print but I've seen it on the second hand market.
