Vídeo: La ciencia ficción actual (Festival Niebla 2016)

Para terminar con los vídeos del Festival Niebla de este año, os traigo hoy la grabación de la charla La ciencia ficción actual, en la que tuve el placer de participar junto a Cristina Macía, Ian Watson, Pedro Román, Felicidad Martínez y Mariano Villarreal.

¡Que la disfrutéis!

Vídeo: Encuentro con los VerdHugos (Festival Niebla 2016)

Hoy os traigo un nuevo vídeo del Festival Niebla. En esta ocasión, se trata de la grabación del encuentro con (parte de) los miembros del podcast de Los VerdHugos (Leticia Lara, Pedro Román, Pablo Bueno, Josep María Oriol, Miquel Codony y un servidor) dirigido por Pablo Bueno. Agradezco a Borja Bilbao que se encargara de la cámara. 

¡Espero que os guste!

Especial Sportula: Reseña de W de Watchmen en Leemaslibros

Hoy en el especial dedicado a la Editorial Sportula tenemos una colaboración insigne: Pedro Román, todo un VerdHugo, nos habla en su blog Leemaslibros sobre W de Watchmen, el ensayo en el que Rafael Marín analiza el famoso cómic de Alan Moore y Dave Gibbons. 

Ya estamos llegando a la recta final de nuestro especial, pero aún nos quedan algunas sorpresas y, por supuesto, todavía podéis participar en nuestro concurso.

Esperamos que os esté gustando tanto como a nosotros.

Pedro Román interviews Tamara Romero

Tamara Romero is a new author whose novelette Her Fingers has received glowing reviews from some of the most prominent Spanish science fiction and fantasy blogs: La Bilbioteca de Ilium (review in English and in Spanish), Leemaslibros (review in Spanish) and Sin Solapas (review in Spanish), to name a few. Thus, it is pleasure for me to publish this interview of Pedro Román with Tamara Romero (you can read the Spanish translation at Pedro's blog).

Pedro Román: Let our readers know a bit about yourself

Tamara Romero: I live in Barcelona. I have a degree in Media Studies and my specialty is film theory. I started working as a TV sports producer, but I quickly lost all interest in television. Then I worked at a big publishing house for four years, as a press manager and assistant editor. After that, I did a long trip around the US, and then I became a freelance editor and professional reader for several companies. This is more or less my background. Nowadays I have a steady job on marketing and editing in online media, and I combine it with my writing. I haven't done much more, I'm still quite young!

PR: When and why did you jump into writing? Why in English?

TR: I guess I’ve always written as a hobby, but being published in English in the US was just pure chance. I wrote Her Fingers in Spanish in the summer of 2008 and since it’s a 70 pages novelette I thought that it would never have a chance to be published here, in a market that is a bit obsessed with long sagas.

Last year, in February, I discovered Bizarro Fiction (as they say, it’s literature’s equivalent to the cult section at the video store) and I was really happy to find out about their formats: weird pop culture-influenced books and novellas that could be read in one sitting. So the fact that they were open to publish novelettes was what made me remind of Her Fingers and tell them. They liked the story pitch and I started working on the translation. So it’s been a format issue. I never bothered to send Her Fingers to any editor in Spain simply  because it would have been too short for them.

PR: The genre market in Spain is…

TR: Dispersed, scattered, a bit invisible, and with an outstanding obsession with epic fantasy.

I have to say that I don’t read many Spanish authors, but I have the feeling that some of the most remarkable novels have been published in non-genre imprints and that didn’t help us to build a fantastic lit tradition. Spanish editors do not take many risks either. Although we never had any big author. We didn’t have a Stanislaw Lem. I also think that South American writers have had fewer complexes.

As for the audience, fantastic literature has been a bit in the margins here until the arrival of Harry Potter and A Song of Ice and Fire. These two sagas have brought thousands of new readers in Spain and that’s a great opportunity for genre writers.

PR: Translating a book (even a short one) into English sounds scary. Did you undertake it?

TR: If you are very interested in the fantasy genre I guess that you end up reading in English –or trying to, because there’s so much fantastic fiction that doesn’t have room in the Spanish market. So I’ve been reading regularly in English for the last ten years and ended up having a really proficient level. Also, I watch tons of movies in original version and this has helped me to deliver decent dialogues in English. When I pitched the story to Eraserhead Press they told me that it sounded very interesting but they were reading manuscripts only in English, and if I could translate some of it they would have a look. So I started by the two first chapters and sent them, and after that, I received the editor’s OK to go on.

So I translated Her Fingers myself. Then a bilingual writer helped me to polish, and finally my editor changed some British expressions. I didn’t hire any professional translator. But I must say that I dared to do this because it’s a short text, a 70 pages novelette. It was three weeks of intense work. I’m not sure if I could do this again with a full length novel. It’s quite hard, and I don’t think I would write directly in English either.

I don’t think that the text has lost any quality with a translation. On the contrary, I improved many things. There are some new facts in the story. If the text is ever published in Spanish, I should re-check it again and fix them.

PR: Would you suggest this path to other writers?

TR: I’d say that American audience, for instance, is not really used to reading translations. Translated writers are rare and they might see them mostly as somewhat exotic. But if you write fantasy, or sci fi, or horror, then you should consider it seriously and try to perfect your written English. The fantasy market in English is bigger, so there’s more room for new writers, and something that I consider quite important: there are magazines were you can publish your short fiction. That does not really exist here. There are also lots of small presses with open submissions periods.

It’s 2013, there’s Internet and we have hundreds of possibilities to explore, from small presses to self-publishing. Right now it’s a great moment to be a writer.

PR: Who are your literary references? How much of them did you pour into Her Fingers?

TR: I have many literary references and if I name them, probably you can see some in Her Fingers. I’m certain I wouldn’t have written it if I hadn’t read Perdido Street Station by China Miéville. Jeff Noon is also one of my favorite writers, and I’m very happy that he’s back after ten years. I’m also a fan of Marion Zimmer Bradley and her ‘Darkover’ series. The last book that I read just before writing Her Fingers was The Mists of Avalon. I also like Poppy Z. Brite, Clive Barker, Jeff Vandermeer, Ursula K. Le Guin, H.P. Lovecraft, Philip K. Dick (mostly his short stories), J.G. Ballard… I enjoy classic erotic literature (Story of O is one of my favorite novels), and what I call the ‘hegemony in US and Europe’: Michel Houellebecq and Jonathan Franzen. When I was a bit younger I used to read books by Irvine Welsh or Dennis Cooper and the use of drugs is quite present in my stories too, often in the shape of legal, new, magical substances. Right now, Carlton Mellick’s books are also being an inspiration for working on new bizarro stories. And Dostoyevsky, always.

PR: If I understand it, Eraserhead Press released your novelette as a test: if it sells well enough, you will be offered a contract. How is it faring so far?

TR: Exactly. Her Fingers is published under the New Bizarro Author Series, an imprint of Eraserhead Press. Every year, they pick a group of new authors and they publish their books in November, at their annual convention. We have a year to sell a specific number of copies, a few hundreds, and if we manage to promote our work properly and deliver high quality weird stories we can opt to a contract in the following year. Eraserhead Press is a cult indie publishing house and bizarro genre is getting bigger and bigger in the US. They have a lot of fans. When my book was announced, there were already people looking forward to reading it and that’s the dream of a newbie. I already had an audience. The first reviews have been very enthusiastic! I won’t have an update on sales figures until next month or so. But so far, everything’s great.

PR: Society analysis, the exploration of personal and collective roles and, definitely, the abundance of ideas, are core points of your novelette. Are they also part of your trademark? What else?

TR: Ideas are my most appreciated tool when writing and fortunately I never run out of them. I like to provide something new, weird, and powerful, if I can, in every page, so you want to turn it and find something else that drags you deeper into that world. I like being extremely generous with ideas. I don’t save them for other books. It might be overwhelming and a bit baroque sometimes, but personally that’s what I enjoy as a reader. Sometimes I hid literary references to the classics. In Her Fingers there’s a Crime and Punishment one.

I also like having a political approach to fantasy stories, even if it’s just a story about teenagers. I like detailing political systems and I guess I somehow end up writing about the control of societies and control in general.

PR: Full of vibrant ideas and with plenty of room for development, do you plan return to the world of Her Fingers? Will it be a cornerstone for new books?

TR: I don't plan to go back to Her Fingers’ world, but I don’t dismiss it either. I might think about writing some short stories set in that universe –definitely not a novel-, maybe about the Sleepwalkers, or Barsiddharta’s dictatorship period, but mind that I wrote the first version five years ago. Then, until last year, the story was kept in a USB in a drawer and I almost forgot it completely, because I’ve been working on a long novel for the last two years, and it’s a story with a more detailed and complex world that keeps me quite busy right now.

PR: What are your future projects?

TR: I’m just finishing a novel in Spanish. It’s my longest piece so far. It’s a dark fantasy story about two detective girls, set in a strange mountain-city with a very high density of twins and some weird events going on after the disappearance of a young girl. It also has a dense political background, night clubs, strippers, rock bands, an evil female governor... I’m not sure if you’ll be able to read it this year, I’d like to find an editor first. I’m very happy already with the first draft, but it still needs work. I’ll also be working on some short fiction in English and I hope to write a couple of novelettes in 2013. And, obviously I’ll be supporting Her Fingers out there. That little book is very dear to me and the e-book edition is coming very soon.

PR: Where can our readers find more about you and your work?

TR: Visit my site for occasional updates! (I’m a terrible blogger). Meantime we can always talk about books and movies and life at Twitter. (@tamara_rom)

(You can also read this interview in Spanish at Leemaslibros/También puedes leer esta entrevista en español en leemaslibros)

Pedro Román logra el tercer puesto en el VII Certamen Literario 'SER Épicos, historias de elfos y dragones'

Pedro Román no sólo es un blogger extraordinario y un podcaster insuperable, sino que también está empezando a hacer sus pinitos como escritor. Y con bastante éxito, por lo que parece. Ayer se anunciaron los ganadores del VII Certamen Literario 'SER Épicos, historias de elfos y dragones' y Pedro Román obtuvo el tercer puesto con su relato "Antiguas raíces", una historia contada en primera persona por uno de los dragones más famosos de la literatura moderna. El primer puesto fue para Juan Manuel Cuerda y el segundo para Javier Escolar. En esta ocasión, el certamen conmemoraba el 75 aniversario de la edición de El Hobbit de J.R.R. Tolkien.

Desde aquí no podemos menos que felicitar de todo corazón a Pedro y desearle que éste sea sólo el inicio de una brillante carrera como escritor.

Interview with Karin Tidbeck

My good friend Pedro Román has recently reviewed Jagannath by Karin Tidbeck, an extremely interesting collection of short stories. Today, he has published an interview with the author in Spanish and he has been so kind as to letting me simultaneously publish the original version in English. Enjoy! 

Pedro Román: What is the state of science fiction and fantasy in Sweden?

Karin Tidbeck: Things are getting better and better. The genre was in a long slump during the 90's and early 00's, but now blogs, magazines and publishers are popping up everywhere. The larger publishing houses are also showing interest in fantastic fiction. A bunch of new authors have arrived on the scene in recent years, mostly in horror, urban fantasy and high fantasy. There's also been a boom on the sf/fantasy comics scene, which is great, because Sweden does have a long tradition of quality comics. I'm very optimistic of the future.

PR: A few weeks ago, I recommended new scifi/fantasy Spanish writers to study English and have their works translated, as the local market is quite… complex. It seems you took that very advice several years ago. Was it the only way to expand frontiers for your work? Do you think it is a good choice? Is it the only one?
 

KT: At the time, it seemed like the only viable choice for me. However, there were other ways I could have taken to expand in Swedish, but that would have required more work, like starting a magazine of my own or self-publishing. I don't have that kind of energy, but I admire those who have. One of the main reasons the Swedish scene is looking up now is because a bunch of very creative people have done just that. Even so, expanding into English means a larger audience, both because there are about a gazillion more potential readers, but also because Swedish literary culture still looks down on fantastic fiction. As an example, while both my books in Swedish have gotten a ton of love from book bloggers, genre magazines and the all-important library registry (you get a good review there, you ensure presence in the public libraries), regular magazines and journals have shown almost zero interest. This is par for the course when writing fantastic fiction except when the handful of journalists sympathetic to the genre make an effort to bring it forward. I'm in general extremely annoyed about the rigid ordering into genres – people fixate on whether it's social realism or not, instead of looking at themes and narrative.

PR: How do you define your work?
 

KT: I don't. I often get that question, but I don't really want to go beyond saying "fantastic fiction" or "stories". See my annoyance regarding genre division. I'm using various terms to describe what's going on in Sweden, but really, genre terms should be used only when needed as a tool for discussion or analysis. I think it's way more important to discuss what goes on in the stories rather than ”does it have dragons or rockets? Is it real fantasy or not?”. I don't know if I even feel like using the term ”fantastic fiction” anymore, because people hang onto that instead of talking about what the stories are about. They don't do that with social realism.

PR: Most of your tales draw from Nordic myths. However, you use not the well-known Norse Gods but rather the unknown domestic beings. As an expert in comparative religion, one could think your first base would be Thor, Odin and the like. Was it a conscious choice to ignore the huge and explore the small?  If so, why? 

KT: I write about people, sometimes about people that aren't humans. The human/not-quite-human territory fascinates me, the in-between states. As someone who was reared on Norse mythology, the Aesir and Vanir are a little boring in comparison. They're gods, they go on adventures and get in trouble and punish humans or each other. We know all about them, their stories are written. Stories about gods are also a different beast than stories about folkloric creatures: traditionally, myths about gods are a way to explain why the world looks the way it does, where we come from, what happens after death, what rules there are and what happens if you break them. Basically they define reality and our place in it. When you start to involve gods in your fiction, it's inevitable that this aspect creeps in.
In Nordic folklore, as in many other places, humans didn't have direct contact with gods except extremely rarely. They saw vittra, gnomes, nixies, trolls, changelings. The gods were huge, abstract beings that you didn't really want to bump into. Folklore often deals with more immediate human problems: why is my cow not giving milk? Why does my baby look different than other babies? What was that creature standing next to my bed and why couldn't I move? It used to be trolls and witches – these days it's aliens (or governmental conspiracies). We compulsively tell stories about these folkloric creatures that we feel are there but aren't humans, and not gods, and might be from here or elsewhere. They're very interesting.

PR: Jagannath is the name of an Indian Deity which means “World” and has no legs. At first I thought it was a sort of joke, as your jagannath is a world in itself but  many-legged. Later I came up with a deeper idea of the story as a sort of metaphor of our own world and its deficient running course. What is the truth behind Jagannath?
 

KT: I don't write my stories as metaphors, so my intention is exactly what you can see on the page. I'm delighted that readers can find deeper layers of meaning in the text, though. That's how it's supposed to work. I chose the name (which to my understanding means "Lord of the world") because of the sensation it describes, rather than going for the etymological meaning. In the story, Mother is an enormous creature driven forward by a myriad of workers, crushing and eating everything in her way. That sensation a huge, sentient being with an almost unstoppable inertia led me to the concept of the Jagannath. In hindsight, the etymological meaning works well, too. Mother is, after all, the lady of the world in a sense.

PR: “August Prima” has a distinctive Carrollian taste; “Arvin Pekon”, Kafkaesque. Which are your writing influences?

KT: They're from many different places. I could name some: Tove Jansson, H P Lovecraft, Samuel Delany, Elizabeth Hand, Neil Gaiman, Ursula K Le Guin; the comics of Alan Moore, Frank Miller and Enki Bilal. I'm just naming writers I love, here – it's always hard to tell what's actually influenced you and whose works you just enjoy. Everything you see and hear is fodder for the mental compost heap. I've not read Kafka very extensively. I guess we're just kindred spirits.

PR: “Aunts” is maybe the weirdest tale of this collection, not only because of the story itself but also because it cannot be read in isolation — reading “August Prima” before is needed to understand it fully. Both tales work extremely well together and offer insights into a very interesting universe. Do you plan to release more tales within it?
 

KT: I'm considering it, yes. I have a few more stories within that same world that I'm working on translating. I have a lot on my plate at the moment, but it's possible!

PR: You have just published your first novel, Amatka, in Swedish. What can you tell us about it? When will we see it published in English?

KT: Amatka is a ”utopian dystopia” of sorts – it's about colonizing a world where reality behaves in a very different way from what we're used to. It has a lot to do with exploring language and its effect on consciousness and reality. I'm working on a translation right now.

PR: What can you tell us of your future plans?

KT: The translation of Amatka into English, building a new story collection in Swedish, then translating that into English. I wish I could work more on producing new material, but since I'm writing everything twice, it's slow going.