Mon frère l’ombre (Tyranaël 3) (1997) by Élisabeth Vonarburg

The third volume of Élisabeth Vonarburg’s grand saga: Tyranaël. The inhabitants of Virginia have had no contact with Earth for centuries. In the cities and villages of the main continent, a new order and an apparent peace prevail. Yet this in no way precludes the existence of ghettos where “Stoneheads”—descendants of the Earthlings who long ago attempted to reconquer the planet—struggle to survive. Mathieu, who believes himself to be one of them, has escaped from a “School” where he was held captive and drugged. Feigning amnesia, he manages to integrate himself into this Virginian society—a place where, he hopes, he will finally come to understand why he was treated in such a manner. His relentless quest leads him to take sides in the secret war that has pitted two factions of mutants—the “Greys” and the “Rebbims”—against one another for centuries, and, above all, to discover the bridge leading to the world of the Ancients…

L’autre rivage (Tyranaël 4) (1997) by Élisabeth Vonarburg

The fourth volume in the *Tyranaël* series. The adventures continue… Since Mathieu crossed over into the world of the Ancients two centuries ago, many Virginians have followed in his footsteps. Yet while the two races have intermingled, their descendants—over the course of generations—have lost their psychic faculties. Such is the case with young Lian, much to his mother’s despair; for to a Rani, there is no greater tragedy than to be forever cut off from the Sea. For Lian, however, the true misfortune lies in feeling alienated from a society he cherishes above all else. Would he be better off on the other side—on Virginia? But until now, the passage has always been a one-way journey…

La Mer allée avec le soleil (Tyranaël 5) (1997) by Élisabeth Vonarburg

*The Sea Gone with the Sun*: the astonishing conclusion—and the resolution to every enigma—of a grandiose saga: that of Tyranaël. After centuries of conflict, peace finally reigns over Virginia, and—thanks to the Sea—communication is now possible with Atyrkelsaõ and the people of the Ancients. The granddaughter of a “Crosser” who arrived from the Other Side, Taïriel has nonetheless never manifested any powers and plans to go into exile aboard the Lagrange orbital station. However, a brief affair with Samuel—a young telepath with a mysterious past—will upend her plans for the future. Who is he, really? What connection exists between him and Ktulhudar, the legendary demigod of the Ancients? And why does Taïriel suddenly begin experiencing these “absences”—these “waking dreams” that leave her drained of strength and horrified by the violence of the visions?

A Broken Bridge (2019) by Cheon Seon-Ran

A nuclear rocket falls onto the US continent, eventually making it unlivable for any beings. Androids are sent to cleanse the contaminated area, and there they make their independent advancement. The main character, “Ain,” was a former astronomer who lost his body to an accident and put his brain into an android. Won the excellence prize for full-length novels at the 7th SF Awards 2020.

The Future of Yesterday (1972) by Harry Mulisch

A justification for an unwritten novel about Europe after 1945, following a German victory during the Second World War.

[read M. O. Orthofer’s review here]

Chelm – A Tale of One City (2023) by Yaniv Hagbi

Chelm. We see only its broad back, unable to discern where its gaze is directed. Chelm is a city unlike all others, for beyond it lies nothing: it physically separates us from the void. Chelm is known in Jewish folklore as a city of fools. But the truth of Chelm is much darker—its inhabitants harbor an ancient and fearsome metaphysical wisdom beneath a facade of folly. If we dare to look directly at this wisdom, we risk being blinded. Yaniv Hagbi’s novel weaves the stories of Chelm into a dizzying plot. It focuses on the tale of the son of the Chelm blacksmith, who seeks to save his soul from the city’s grotesque logic. He is exiled to the neighboring city of Z, where logic and practical reasoning prevail. But the city of Z cannot endure life alongside the spiraling spectacle of folly for long, and the blacksmith’s son is forced to return to Chelm one last time— this time as the leader of Z’s inhabitants, to fight against his birthplace and destroy it.

Frost (Rose of Judea #1) (2010) by Shimon Adaf (Kinneret, Zmora-Bitan)

In five hundred years’ time, in Tel Aviv, a number of Jewish religious seminary students begin showing signs of mysterious body changes. A genius in Torah and science, Yehezkel Ben Grim is rushed to the scene, asked to diagnose the strange disease and find a cure. In his search for a remedy, he travels to the lands of the Gentiles, and when he returns to Tel Aviv he is followed by a young Gentile woman who clings to him like a shadow. Meanwhile, the works of an anonymous poet are heard in the city and he is denounced as a rebel, for poetry is forbidden to those who have not been ordained as poets. The investigation into the poet’s identity and the arrival of the Gentile woman in Tel Aviv undermine the stability of the city and seal the fate of many characters in the story.

Mox Nox (Rose of Judea #2) by Shimon Adaf

In this novel, Adaf deals with major issues in contemporary Israeli experience: secularism and religion, outlying areas versus the center of the country, authenticity and puritanism versus the phony and debauched. And as always with Shimon Adaf, the fantastic permeates reality and undermines it.

About the Undercities (Rose of Judea #3) by Shimon Adaf

During a stay in Berlin, a young Israeli – the narrator – sees a symbol that makes him feel anxious and he decides to look into its history. At the same time, we meet a brother and sister, Tveria and Akko Asido, whose childhood and adolescence are marked by their father’s attraction to an unknown, occult Jewish belief. Between the narrator’s story and that of the two siblings, the reader is led to make certain connections, leading to possible answers, but they are not accessible to the characters. This is a mesmerizing novel about a passion to understand the world, and about the distortions that are bound up with that passion. Like all great tragedies, it grows out of the most important questions: Are we doomed to take on an identity that has come down to us through family heredity, even though it is clear to us that certain aspects are flawed or coincidental? Or should we try to develop an identity based on an alternative system offered to us by human culture?