Terra Nova: An Anthology of Contemporary Spanish Science Fiction (38 page)

Science fiction
from Spain is completely unknown outside its
borders. Actually, this statement is somewhat exaggerated, since
literature from Spain has been exported relatively often (and with
occasional success) to a variety of Latin American countries (and
vice versa) thanks to a shared language and cultural references.
Yet we can hardly find books by Spanish authors in the
English-speaking market. Fortunately, this situation is changing as
science fiction in the United States and other countries is opening
up to other cultures, united by means of the great social network
that is the Internet.

Without hesitation, I can offer plenty of
examples to show that Spanish science fiction is excellent
literature that would interest readers in English-speaking
countries or anywhere else on the planet. It contains works of
enormous literary and speculative quality with a wide variety of
themes and subjects, and with internationally famous authors and
its own classics. Over time, it has constantly evolved toward
higher levels of excellence, professionalism, and social
acceptance, and today it holds a small but stable portion of the
national publishing market, despite the current economic
crisis.

Nevertheless, it is true that science
fiction in Spain has not reached the popularity and relevance that
it enjoys in other countries. While there are many reasons for
that, most analysts say the main ones are the overwhelming
importance of realism, the traditional discrediting of genres in
general by critics, and the repressive effect of the Franco
dictatorship. When democracy began to open up Spanish culture in
1975, speculative fiction and more literary science fiction enjoyed
a notable opportunity to flourish, resulting in greater interest by
society, critics, and academics. An authentic explosion of
publications, authors, and works followed, most of which have
become reference points for our writers after so many decades of
imitating foreign works. Science fiction achieved what we could
call its Spanish Golden Age at the end of the 1990s.

However, this bubble —like
so many others— largely deflated at the start of the new century
due to limitations inherent in the Spanish market. Many of the
writers left the genre or alternated between more commercial genres
such as young adult and historical novels, or fantasy or cult
speculative fiction, with notable success both in readers and
awards. This is the current situation.

In Spanish science fiction today, you can
find new editions of successful titles, new books by young writers
seeking to reclaim its social relevance or entertainment value, and
new works by acclaimed writers. They all coexist in harmony and
relative normality in bookstores, universities, forums, public
events, and cultural supplements in newspapers and magazines,
although the space dedicated to the genre is still relatively
small.

1. Two Classics and Ten
Authors

Just as there is no
complete consensus —although there is a general agreement— for
designating
Frankenstein
by Mary Shelley as the first science fiction
novel, there is also no uncontested event to mark of the start of
the modern era of the genre in Spain. For some it was when the
legendary magazine
Nueva Dimensión
appeared at the end of the 1960s; with its 148
issues published over 15 years, it brought outstanding works to a
still-naive public readership. For others it was the 1984
publication of the first modern Spanish SF classic: the
novel
Lágrimas de luz
[
Tears of Light
] by Rafael Marín.

This work, written with a polished lyrical
style, a disillusioned tone, and an attractive medievalized high
technology background, narrates the life of the bard Hamlet Evans,
a troubadour hired by an economic-military corporation to extol the
virtues of the conquest of space and to erase the memory of its
excesses and crimes. The novel occupies a place of honor in the
history of Spanish science fiction, since its unarguable literary
merits are united with its status as the first work that aimed at
being universal. It broke Spain’s long-standing inferiority
complex.

Soon after, in 1988 and
1990, two novels consolidated the definite maturity of the genre in
Spain:
Mundos en el abismo
[
Worlds in the
Abyss
] and
Hijos
de la eternidad
[
Children of Eternity
] coauthored by
Juan Miguel Aguilera and Javier Redal, which were later combined
into a single book:
Mundos en la
eternidad
[
Worlds
in Eternity
]. This hard science fiction
epic is set in the remote future, in Akasa-Puspa (literally “the
flower in the sky” in Sanskrit), a global cluster in one of the
spiral arms of the Milky Way where the short distance between the
stars allows for quick travel in manned Imperial fusion ships or
the slower but equally effective self-directed solar sail
mercantile ships of the Utsarpini or religious caste of the
Brotherhood. In Akasa-Puspa, humans coexist with alien species like
the extremely bellicose Angriffs, the enigmatic Hivers, or the
strange nested creatures of the Little Guild. This vast cosmic
background in a state of permanent conflict is the setting for
scientific discoveries and an ingenious commerce system of unmanned
ships, for disputes over political and economic interests, and for
several wars. The novel was written with careful scientific and
speculative rigor, incorporating the latest theories in biology,
evolution, cosmology, and eschatology. It has been justly compared
to classics like
The Mote in God’s
Eye
by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle
or
Ringworld
by
Larry Niven.

Both these masterpieces of Spanish SF are
still awaiting a publisher who will dare to translate them to
English. But besides these, many writers have contributed valuable
works to the genre. For reasons of space, we will only look at ten
of them:

Rafael Marín, born in
Cádiz in 1959, is an English teacher and translator. Besides
Lágrimas de luz
, his
outstanding speculative works include the epic fantasy
La leyenda del navegante
[
The Legend of the
Navigator
] in 1992; his tribute to
superhero comics
Mundo de dioses
[
World of
Gods
] in 1997; the Holmes-style
pastiche
Elemental, querido Chaplin
[
Elementary, My Dear
Chaplin
] in 2005; the medieval alternative
history
Juglar
[
Jongleur
],
which won the 2006 Ignotus and features the greatest hero of the
reconquest of Spain from the Moors, Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar, “El
Cid”; a horror story set in his native Cádiz,
La ciudad enmascarada
[
The Masked City
] in 2011; the young adult novel
Oceanum [Oceanum]
, written with Juan
Miguel Aguilera, in 2012; and, above all, his two exceptional short
story collections,
Unicornios sin
cabeza
[
Headless
Unicorns
] in 1987 and
Piel de fantasma
[
Ghost Skin
] in 2010, which reflect his concern for style and his
efforts to make local references and create original, sensitive,
and extraordinarily provocative stories.

Juan Miguel Aguilera, born
in Valencia in 1960, is a graphic designer; Javier Redal was born
in Valencia in 1952 and teaches science.
The importance of
Mundos en el abismo
and
Hijos de la
eternidad
has already been
mentioned.
Other books set in the same
universe followed: in 1994, the Ignotus-winning
En un vacío insonable
[
In an Unfathomable
Emptiness
]; in 1994, the
Ignotus-winning
El refugio
[
The
Refuge
]; in 2011,
Némesis
[
Nemesis
]; and a handful of
magnificent short stories comparable to the world’s best science
fiction, such as the 1996 Ignotus-winning novelette “El bosque del
hielo” [“The Ice Forest”]. Aguilera went on to have a successful
solo career with works published in France and Italy, where he has
won important literary awards. These include novels like the 1998
Ignotus-winning medieval alternate history
La locura de dios
[
The Madness of
God
]; and in 2008, the magnificent
Rhila
, about the
possible discovery of America by Muslims; along with
El sueño de la razón
[
The Sleep of
Reason
] in 2006, and the 2009
thriller
La red de Indra
[
Indra’s
Net
]. He is passionate about science and
travel novels, and his works transmit like few others the sense of
wonder so characteristic of science fiction.

Elia Barceló was born in
Elda, Alicante, in 1957, and is a professor of Hispanic literature
at the University of Innsbruck, Austria. She is the most
outstanding female writer in the genre in Spain: Spanish science
fiction’s leading lady. Her 1989 collection
Sagrada
[
Sacred
] brings together her most
relevant shorter works from the 1980s, and her 1995 anthropological
novelette
El mundo de Yarek
[
Yarek’s
World
] won the UPC award and serves as a
landmark. Although she has not completely abandoned the genre, her
later work leans toward the more literary side of speculative
fiction with titles like
El vuelo del
hipogrifo
[
The
Flight of the Hipogriffe
] in 2002;
El secreto de orfebre
[
The Goldsmith’s
Secret
] in 2003; and
Corazón de tango
[
Tango Heart
] in 2007. The horror novel
El
contricante
[
The
Opponent
] in 2007 was followed by the
young adult books
Cordeluna
in 2007 and
Hijos del
clan rojo
[
Children of the Red Clan
] in 2013.
She has also published academic works analyzing Julio
Cortázar.

César Mallorquí was born
in Barcelona in 1953 and is a writer, publicist, and journalist.
His 1995 short story collection
El círculo
de Jericó
[
The
Jericho Ring
] brought together a handful
of stories considered among the best ever written in Spanish
science fiction —exceptional stories that won both awards and
recognition. His 1996 novella “El coleccionista de sellos” won the
UPC award: set during the Spanish Civil War, it marked a new
landmark in Spanish science fiction. Mallorquí was one of the first
to jump into young adult literature with a number of speculative
fiction works that deservedly won the genre's most important
prizes:
La fraternidad de Elhwaz
[
The Eihwaz
Fraternity
] in 1998;
Las lágrimas de Shiva
[
Shiva’s Tears
] in 2002;
Leonís
in 2011; or
La isla de
Bowen
[
Bowen’s
Island
] in 2012, an exciting adventure
written in the style of Jules Verne and with explicit tributes to
the works of Arthur Conan Doyle.

Rodolfo Martínez was born
in Candás, Asturias, in 1965, and is a computer programmer. He is
one of Spain’s most prolific writers and probably the author who
has won the most awards in the genre. With a transparent style and
a special willingness to experiment and change registers, his works
fall into every subgenre of speculative fiction. Several years ago
he also took on the role of publisher for
Sportula
. Among his best-known works
are the cyberpunk novels
La sonrisa del
gato
[
The Cat’s
Smile
] in 1995 and
El sueño del rey rojo
[
The Red King’s
Dream
] in 2004; the ambitious space
opera
Tierra de nadie: Jormungand
[
No-Man’s Land:
Jormungand
], which won the 1996 Ignotus
award; the unclassifiable
Este relámpago,
esta locura
[
This
Lightning, This Madness
], which won the
1999 Ignotus; the 1999 thriller
El abismo
te devuelve la mirada
[
The Abyss Looks Back at You
]; the
2011 mythological novel
Sondela
; and two urban
fantasies,
Los sicarios del cielo
[
The Heavenly
Assassins
], winner of the 2005 Minotauro
prize, and
Fieramente humano
[
Fiercely
Human
], which won the 2011 Ignotus award.
He has also written several Sherlock Holmes pastiches with a
fantastic bend; another series featuring a character somewhat like
James Bond in an alternate universe with unique physics includes
two novels,
El adepto de la reina
[
The Queen’s
Adept
] in 2009 and
El jardín de la memoria
[
The Garden of
Memory
] in 2011. His short fiction has
been collected in
Callejones sin
salida
[
Blind
Alleys
] in 2005,
Laberinto de espejos
[
Labyrinth of
Mirrors
] in 2011,
Horizonte de sucesos
[
Event Horizon
] in 2011, and
Porciones
individuales
[
Single portions
] in 2013.