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French SF by Bordes; Neanderthal SF
Paul Ossa (ARCPO@LURE.LATROBE.EDU.AU)
Fri, 20 May 1994 23:03:15 +1000
Someone mentioned that F. Bordes wrote some SF novels. They were
writen under the name Francis Carsac. None, as far as I know, was ever
translated into English. They were translated from the original French into
several other languages. In the early 1980s a set of reprints was
projected, but as far as I know only one was published, with a preface by
Jacques Tixier and a Frontispiece by Pierre Laurent. This was:
1967 La vermine du lion.
His other SF books were:
1954 Ceux de nulle part.
1955 Les Robinsons du cosmos.
1960 Terre en fuite.
1962 Ce monde est notre.
1962 Pour patrie, l'espace.
He also wrote about 17 short stories which appeared between 1954 and
1982, mostly in the French SF magazine Fiction.
They are rather old fashioned for today, more like space operas. I liked
some of them, though, and some had gooth themes.
I am Surprised that nobody has mentioned two excellent and thoughtful
books on Neanderthals writen by the late Finnish paleontologist,
Bjorn Kurten.
These were originally written in Swedish (both I think ) but were
translated as:
1980 Dance of the tiger.
(This one had the unfortunate cover blurb 'In the classic tradition of
Clan of the Casve Bear').
1986 Singletusk.
Finally, J.-H. Rosny's La Guerre du Feu is one of the most awful
books that I have read. The English translation (by Harold Talbot
for Penguin) is so awful that it pains me to be looking at it now.
I have read the French a number of times to try to see if it is the
language that made it attractive to the French. Maybe - but I can't
see it. Maybe it is just because it was an early SF book? I don't
have its original publication date. The movie, on the other hand,
was a GAS!
Paul Ossa
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