The first guest post in my series SF Short Stories by Women Writers pre-1969 (original announcement) comes via Rachel S. Cordasco (follow her on twitter) who runs the spectacular, and much needed, resource Speculative Fiction in Translation and who blogs on literature more generally at Bookishly Witty. She also writes for tor.com and Book Riot.
Check out her list of reviews organized by country! Israel, Iraq, France, Italy, Korea, etc.
Her post focuses on three stories by French women writers: “The Devil’s Goddaughter” (1960) by Suzanne Malaval, “Moon-Fishers” (1959) by Nathalie Henneberg, and “The Chain of Love” (1955) by Catherine Cliff.
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(Louis S. Glanzman’s cover for the 1965 edition of 13 French Science-Fiction Stories (1965), ed. and trans., Damon Knight)
Three Stories from 13 French Science-Fiction Stories, edited and translated by Damon Knight (Bantam Books, 1965, 165 pages).
by Rachel S. Cordasco
Don’t be put off by the purple prose on the front and back covers; 13 French Science-Fiction Stories is a fantastic resource for anyone looking to read more widely in the 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 “The Devil’s Goddaughter” (1960) by Suzanne Malaval, “Moon-Fishers” (1959) by Nathalie Henneberg, and “The Chain of Love” (1955) by Catherine Cliff.
At just four pages, “The Devil’s Goddaughter” is a bizarre and unsettling allegory(?)/folktale(?) about a girl who is the last in a family of eight children and thus can’t find a godparent in town. So of course the devil steps in and offers his services. Over her mother’s protests, Fanche’s 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’s wife (yes, he’s married) gets jealous and tells Fanche all of the answers, thus securing her release. The “punch line” 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’s tale? Most definitely.
(“The Devil’s Goddaughter” first appeared in Fiction, #79 (1960), ed. Alain Dorémieux. Cover: Lucien Lepiez)
Catherine Cliff’s story, however, fits much more neatly into the “science fiction” box. When an out-of-work actress contemplating suicide is brought in off the street by a mild-mannered “man” and cared for without any apparent strings attached, the scenario seems too good to be true. Little by little, though, we learn that the “man” 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’s growing blind devotion to this “man,” 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.
(“The Chain of Love” first appeared in Fiction, #19 (1955), ed. unknown. Cover: uncredited)
But I have saved the best for last: “Moon-Fishers” is a trip like no other. Knight notes that Henneberg is one of France’s most acclaimed sf authors, and it’s 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’s brain: “The time that acts on matter is external to it. Our contact depends on extrasensory perception”… “[t]he present is built on an uncertain past, looking forward to a multiple and plastic future” (61-2). Pretty brain-twistingly awesome, I say. Once Hugh finds himself in ancient Egypt though, it’s all Stargate from there. Seriously- you’ve 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’t even know you had. And she crams it all into about 20 pages.
I don’t know about you, but I’m all geared up now to read as much Nathalie Henneberg as I can find, and much more sf written by French women in general.
(“Moon-Fishers” first appeared in La première anthologie de la science-fiction française (1959), ed. Alain Dorémieux. Cover: Jean-Claude Forest)
(David McCall Johnston’s cover for the 1972 edition)
(Nathalie Hennenberg’s “Moon Fishers” also appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, April 1962, ed. Avram Davidson under the name of her husband, Charles Hennenberg. Cover: Ed Emshwiller)
For more reviews consult the INDEX
Science Fiction and Other Suspect Ruminations 
Thank you Rachel for the wonderful review. I just purchased a copy of Knight’s collection.
(don’t tell anyone!) I have way too many (my shelves threaten AVALANCHE)…
Great post – these sound fascinating! Obviously translated sci fi is the way to go…. 🙂
Kaggsy, your post is coming soon! I thought I’d mix up the translated SF with the English language SF. So, maybe one or two in between.
Good idea! 🙂
In my searches of used book stores I rarely see titles by female authors prior to 1970 or so, it does seem to be somewhat of a dividing line, as you say in your intro to the series.
The cover for the ’13 French Science Fiction Stories’ reminded me I just recently saw on ISFDB that the ’58 paperback edition of Sheckley’s ‘The Immortals’ is now credited to Glanzman.
Also, I like that Emshwiller cover for F&SF… who of course was married to Carol Emshwiller, who I believe is still writing in her 90’s.
Sheckley’s Immortality, Inc?
When I reviewed the book it was uncredited! Glad it’s identified now..
Looks like ISFDB received an email from his daughter about it. He did a nice cover for Bradbury’s ‘Illustrated Man’ too.
I have yet to read any of Carol Emshwiller’s stories — I have a few Orbit anthologies with her short fiction. She also has a few collections if I remember correctly.
She had a story in ‘Dangerous Visions’ too. Her stories tend to be allegorical, fabulist, absurdist, or some could be called magical realism. She’s written in a number of genres; western, young adult, fantasy, so she might not be well known in one specific area.
Just a note on layout. It wasn’t immediately clear to me where your prefatory comments ended and Rachel Cordasco’s review began. Maybe a byline under the boldface review title? Or your prefatory comments in italics?
Ah, I tried to include that line before the cover image. I wish it was thicker. Let me tinker a bit…
Is the thicker line between the sections easier to follow now? I have also put Rachel’s name under the citation info.
Much better. We old folks are easily confused. 🙂
Hi Rachel
I was delighted to see you were going to discuss stories in the Knight anthology. I picked up a copy a few weeks ago as I wanted to read some French SF. I am looking forward to reading the stories and then your comments.
All the best
Guy
“Cat Girl, I will not clean ze litter box anymore! You will use ze newspaper on ze floor and throw it away when you are done – or you are off on ze next rocket! No, I do not care if all ze little Angels of ze Sun feel pity for you. And making leetle comments about my bullet head does not help you!”
Oh wait. I’ve confused your blog with “Good Show Sir.” Sorry – I’m still on my first cup of coffee this morning.
Good Show Sir is quite fun. Although, disliked when they posted Powers covers! haha.
But yes, maybe this cover relates to one of the stories? I ordered the collection, I’ll read the entire thing soon.
Yes, they’ve roasted some covers I’ve always considered excellent, including a few favorites. Oh well. There’s nothing in this world that isn’t considered laughable by someone. That’s why there will always be a need for serious people of exceptional good taste like ourselves to defend the good, the true, and the beautiful.
I read this book some thirty years ago, yes, I’m that old, and it reminded me that I should probably dig it out and reread it again. As like you, I’m finding myself preferring to read past fictions more than recent ones, especially since the slow death of the mass-market paperback. Good, and bad, fiction is just hard to get a hold of, to expensive too buy, and difficult to store as everything is moving to trade paperbacks, long involved interlocking series, and massive doorstopper books. One thousand page novels? Really, who ever thought that was a good idea. However, back to the point, with the death of the cheap paperback we see little of foreign sf being published here in America that is easily available. I remember liking Nathalie Henneberg’s stories, although now I would probably read them with fresh eyesight. Still, too much has been written elsewhere that we who only read English will never see or enjoy. Oddly though, Japanese manga, sf, Lovecraftian horror, and suspense/crime novels have been regularly translated, but still, there’s a whole world out there and I’m curious, but poor. I just can’t afford to buy the trades at fifteen or twenty bucks apiece, and libraries only seem to want to invest, understandably so, in bestsellers or mainstream authors like Stephen King or Dean Koontz or the like. So, I would like to see more international sf reviewed, if only because these reviews get to think outside my comfortable reading habits.
One of the best efforts was Macmillan’s “Best of Soviet SF” hardcover series, published from 1977 to 1981. Edited and introduced by Theodore Sturgeon, a couple of volumes were issued in paperback as mass market editions, while most were issued in paperback as trade editions. All with gorgeous covers by Paul Lehr and Richard Powers. It’s not too hard to find cheap, used copies through Abebooks.
Tom, as you probably know, I own quite a few in that sequence! I’ve only read one though from the series — the Strutgatsky’s controversial (at the time) The Ugly Duckings (a few months ago) but never reviewed it.
Mark, thanks for the comment. Sounds like you should follow Rachel’s site and get the scoop on new translated SF. My reviews of translated SF will probably be infrequent… still exploring the 60s/70s New Wave movement at the moment.
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