The unreal earth

Tags: Danish Me Review Science fiction

Review of Between heaven and earth (Mellem himmel og jord), Svend Ã…ge Madsen, 1990.

Outline: 20 short stories.

Is it science fiction? To me the short stories have a common theme, explored in many different ways -- sometimes SF. "The children of Mnemosyne" ("Mnemosynes børn") is one of the more clear examples, where people on Earth can receive "TV", depicting the past.

Themes: I kept stumbling on a certain theme while reading the book. (I can't deny there are other themes.) The theme has to do with reality. The children of Mnemosyne e.g. think the past is more real than the present. But there are other variations. A costume becoming the real look. A man gradually taking the place of another man -- and thereby in reality becoming him. Seeing life as if it was TV or a play in the theatre. The boundary between reality and fantasy keeps getting blurred.

Is it good? In some cases I was captivated, yes. "The joys of reading" ("Læsningens glæder") started with the line "She went to her mother, and told her, that she woke up with terrible nausea every morning, and that the reason must be, that she had read something that disagreed with her". I laughed, and that's not the only time. And "Our summer life" ("Vores sommerliv") hinges on a murder. Possibly I like this story, because it's like a classic whodunit, a form I know very well. In any case, I was excited, as the different phases of a murder-story rolled along. As I said, it's not all SF. But if you read SF, because it's a place where boundaries are tested, also the mental, there's something here.

Created: 4 June, 2009 - Last changed: 4 June, 2009 - Comments (0)