L’Officier, Jean-Marc and Randy. French Science Fiction, Fantasy, Horror and Pulp Fiction: A Guide to Cinema, Television, Radio, Animation, Comic Books and Literature from the Middle Ages to the Present. Macfarland, 2000.

The L’Officier book should be the first stop for any researcher in French Science Fiction. This superior English-language reference text offers the reader a detailed history of French language science fiction and “fantastique” in almost all media, as well as author biographies, interviews and illustrations. The text is arranged in two parts: the first section is a chronology and analysis of French films, comic books and radio programs and the second gives the same attention to books and magazines. The entries are concise and clearly written. They anchor each subject securely in the genre as well as address themes pertinent to the specific author or work. Only John Clute and Peter Nicholls’ Encyclopedia of Science Fiction parallels the L’Officiers’ work in scope and thorough coverage of the field.

Walther, Daniel. Book of Shai. Trans. C.J. Cherryh. New York: DAW Books, 1984.

Many years ago, the scientists of Earth developed an apocalyptic technology that destroyed all other technology, causing the people of Earth to regress into a fantasy world of knights, wizards and strange gods. Shai, a recently promoted apprentice of the mysterious and holy Order of the Serpent, has been having strange dreams of a Bear-faced man who wants to destroy the Order. The Bear-faced man is a member of a group that hates the Order’s harsh rule over the rest of humanity living “Outside” the walls of its palace. The rebels contact Shai to tell him the horrors of the Order. They encourage him to betray the Order and conduct them inside to destroy it. Shai is outraged at the truth of his existence, but his compliance with their plans will lead to the murder of his apprentice friends as well. Part Lord of the Rings and part Ender’s Game, Book of Shai tells of Shai’s struggle to save his friends while fighting the Order, and his flight from the life that he has always known.

Walther’s tale of a special boy’s search for identity in a strange world follows a long line of French estrangement stories. It engages many themes common to French science fiction, such as the dangers of technology and the hazards of navigating a new world, but some of it’s merits are marred by the difficulties of translation. Cherryh’s version is intriguing at the outset, but the storyline becomes confusing after the second chapter. One assumes that these issues do not pose the same problems to the reader in the original French version.

Thirteen French Science-Fiction Stories. Ed. Damon Knight. New York: Bantam Books, 1965.

Knight’s collection has two uniting factors: all the stories were originally published in French in the magazine Fiction, and they have an eerie quality that haunts the French fantastique. The reader moves through alternate histories of Earth in which the ancient Egyptian statue of the Sphinx is a representation of a dominant alien species, and worlds where men fall in love with intelligent cars and sexual, cat-like aliens. Knight, masterfully translates these stories and thus they engage both English and French speaking readers with a flair that both thrills and estranges. He includes work from 10 French-speaking authors, some native to France, like Gerard Klein and Boris Vian, as well as Algerian Claude Viellot and Russian born Nathalie Charles-Henneberg. The scope of authors and the quality of their work are evidence that Knight has compiled a truly superior survey of French Science Fiction in the Sixties.