{"id":1443,"date":"2016-12-13T03:30:43","date_gmt":"2016-12-13T03:30:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sfintranslation.com\/?p=1443"},"modified":"2016-12-13T03:30:43","modified_gmt":"2016-12-13T03:30:43","slug":"three-short-stories-by-french-women-sf-writers-pre-1969","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sfintranslation.com\/?p=1443","title":{"rendered":"Three Short Stories by French Women SF Writers Pre-1969"},"content":{"rendered":"

This was originally posted on Science Fiction Ruminations<\/a><\/span> 11\/30\/16 and focuses on three stories by French women writers:\u00a0\u201cThe Devil\u2019s Goddaughter\u201d (1960) by Suzanne Malaval, \u201cMoon-Fishers\u201d (1959) by Nathalie Henneberg, and \u201cThe Chain of Love\u201d (1955) by Catherine Cliff.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Knight\"<\/p>\n

Three Stories from\u00a013 French Science-Fiction Stories<\/em>, edited and translated by Damon Knight (Bantam Books, 1965, 165 pages).<\/strong><\/p>\n

Don\u2019t be put off by the purple prose on the front and back covers; 13 French Science-Fiction Stories<\/em> is a fantastic resource for anyone looking to read more widely in the <\/span>genre. To his credit, Damon Knight includes five stories by women writers (three of those stories are all by Nathalie Henneberg). These radically-different pieces showcase the exciting variety of approaches to sf pre-1969, and each introduces us to French women writers of sf whom we might not have heard of before. And so, without further ado, I give you some thoughts on \u201cThe Devil\u2019s Goddaughter\u201d (1960) by Suzanne Malaval, \u201cMoon-Fishers\u201d (1959) by Nathalie Henneberg, and \u201cThe Chain of Love\u201d (1955) by Catherine Cliff.<\/p>\n

At just four pages, \u201cThe Devil\u2019s Goddaughter\u201d is a bizarre and unsettling allegory(?)\/folktale(?) about a girl who is the last in a family of eight children and thus can\u2019t find a godparent in town. So of course <\/em>the devil steps in and offers his services. Over her mother\u2019s protests, Fanche\u2019s father accepts the devil, and eventually the girl is kidnapped by him and dragged into Hell. Eventually, the devil tries to seduce her, but when Fanche protests, he offers her the chance to leave if she can solve a few riddles. The devil\u2019s wife (yes, he\u2019s married) gets jealous and tells Fanche all of the answers, thus securing her release. The \u201cpunch line\u201d of the story is that the rain that Fanche notices after her escape is due to the devil beating his wife. Science fiction? Nnnnnnot really. A strange and twisted take on an old wive\u2019s tale? Most definitely.<\/p>\n

Catherine Cliff\u2019s story, however, fits much more neatly into the \u201cscience fiction\u201d box. When an out-of-work actress contemplating suicide is brought in off the street by a mild-mannered \u201cman\u201d and cared for without any apparent strings attached, the scenario seems too good to be true. Little by little, though, we learn that the \u201cman\u201d is actually an alien, one of a small group that has blended in on Earth while remaining slightly aloof, acting like tourists all the while. Cliff expertly guides us through the actress\u2019s growing blind devotion to this \u201cman,\u201d culminating in the her realization that she has become his pet in the exact same manner that a human would have a dog or cat. This story is sinister, careful, crafty, and slightly spine-tingling at the end.<\/p>\n

But I have saved the best for last: \u201cMoon-Fishers\u201d is a trip like no other. Knight notes that Henneberg is one of France\u2019s most acclaimed sf authors, and it\u2019s easy to see why. Her stories are complex labyrinths, built with lavish, sensuous sentences, often interested in the clash of the past with aliens\/alien technology. In this story, set in the year 2500, a test pilot named Hugh Page is sent into ancient Egypt via a machine in the Paratime Research laboratory. As the professor in charge of the project explains just before Hugh sets off, time travel is no longer thought of as a physical form of travel. Rather, it is based in the perceiver\u2019s brain: \u201cThe time that acts on matter is external to it. Our contact depends on extrasensory perception\u201d\u2026 \u201c[t]he present is built on an uncertain past, looking forward to a multiple and plastic future\u201d (61-2). Pretty brain-twistingly awesome, I say. Once Hugh finds himself in ancient Egypt though, it\u2019s all Stargate<\/em> from there. Seriously- you\u2019ve got soul-swapping and aliens and ancient Egyptian pharaohs. Hugh winds up trapped in this past and another body (Amenophis), but this is somehow what was supposed to happen all along. Henneberg makes parts of your brain light up that you didn\u2019t even know you had. And she crams it all into about 20 pages.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know about you, but I\u2019m all geared up now to read as much Nathalie Henneberg as I can find, and much more sf written by French women in general.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This was originally posted on Science Fiction Ruminations 11\/30\/16 and focuses on three stories by French women writers:\u00a0\u201cThe Devil\u2019s Goddaughter\u201d (1960) by Suzanne Malaval, \u201cMoon-Fishers\u201d (1959) by Nathalie Henneberg, and \u201cThe Chain of Love\u201d (1955) by Catherine Cliff.   Three Stories from\u00a013 French Science-Fiction Stories, edited and translated by Damon Knight (Bantam Books, 1965, 165<\/p>\n

Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1445,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[232,229,83,135,230,231],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sfintranslation.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1443"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sfintranslation.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sfintranslation.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sfintranslation.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sfintranslation.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1443"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.sfintranslation.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1443\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1446,"href":"https:\/\/www.sfintranslation.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1443\/revisions\/1446"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sfintranslation.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1445"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sfintranslation.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sfintranslation.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sfintranslation.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}