Fantasy

The City & the City by China Miéville (Italian edition)

The novel “The City & the City” by China Miéville was published for the first time in 2009. It won the Hugo Award, the Locus Award, the World Fantasy Award, the Arthur C. Clarke Award, the BSFA Award, and the Kurd-Laßwitz-Preis.

When the body of a disfigured woman is discovered in the slums of Beszel, the city police inspector Tyador Borlú is called to begin investigations into what is clearly a murder. Soon, the case turns out to be complicated because the victim is identified as Mahalia Geary, a foreign student engaged in controversial archaeological research because they concern the history of Beszel and Ul Qoma, the two cities that occupy the same geographical area.

Some clues suggest that Mahalia Geary was killed in Ul Qoma and this means that Inspector Tyador Borlú must invoke the Breach, the superior authority that has the power to investigate crimes involving both cities. However, the cities governments reach a different agreement leading to a continuation of the investigation, which brings further problems because it’s connected to decidedly unorthodox theories about the two cities and the existence of other entities.

Michael Moorcock in 2016

Michael John Moorcock was born on December 18, 1939, in London, England. As a writer, his career began in the fantasy genre with the first stories of what’s his most famous character, Elric of Melniboné, to continue for decades adding novels and short fiction in which he interprets the heroic fantasy genre in a personal way.

Michael Moorcock’s production is very varied and in some cases difficult to label because it mixes genres and subgenres in various ways. His activity is made more complex by his musical projects he alternates with literary ones, and by the fact that in various cases he published revised editions of some works with significant changes.

Michael Moorcock’s activity continued expanding the various cycles and sub-cycles with more or less interconnected novels and short fiction. In recent years he seems to be less active in the literary field and more in the musical field but his production is already so big as to require an encyclopedia to explain the great multiverse he created with all the interconnections among the various universes and their heroes generated by this writer’s extraordinary fantasy.

Lois McMaster Bujold in 2009

Lois McMaster Bujold was born on November 2, 1949 in Columbus, Ohio, USA. In the 1980s Lois McMaster Bujold she wrote the first three novels of the Vorkosigan Saga, her best known science fiction work. In the following decades she had success in the fantasy genre as well with the Chalion series and the series known as The Sharing Knife.

Neil Stephenson in 2011

Neal Town Stephenson was born on October 31, 1959 in Fort Meade, Maryland, USA. Neal Stephenson’s career as a writer began in 1984 with the novel “The Big U”, a satire on university life. A novel more typical of his production was “Zodiac” (1988), an ecological thriller.

Neal Stephenson isn’t a very prolific writer, although some of his novels are really long. He’s often not easy to read because his novels can be really complex with the development of many different themes. You can also read his articles in technology magazines.

60 years of The Twilight Zone

On October 2, 1959, the TV show “The Twilight Zone” made its debut in the USA. It lasted until 1964 for a total of 5 seasons. In the following decades it had various revivals with the second version broadcast between 1985 and 1989, the third version in the 2002-2003 season and the most recent one started in 2019.