Preliminary note: This review appeared originally in the inaugural issue of Rachel S. Cordasco’s new magazine Small Planet: The SF in Translation Magazine. You can read the entire issue for free here! I plan on contributing one review of vintage SFF in translation for each issue. In addition to my review, there’s a fantastic range of other articles and interviews.

4.5/5 (Very Good)

Knut Faldbakken (1941-), a prolific Norwegian novelist, wrote a science-fictional duology titled Sweetwater early in his career. The first volume, Twilight Country (1974, trans. Joan Tate, 1993), followed an odd collection of refugees from a disintegrating urban metropolis, the titular Sweetwater, as they cast off the entangling membranes of lost paths and the weight of melancholy souls and attempt to chart a new beginning in the city Dump.

In volume two, Sweetwater (1976, trans. Joan Tate, 1994), a deathly equilibrium is reached. In an obliquely hinted at dystopia, the city slowly withers and depopulates due to the effects of global warming, industrialization, and malignant societal decay. As the city dies, less and less refuse enters the Dump. The community of outcasts, who inhabit a collection of huts around a camper and crumbling home with small garden plots surrounded by refuse, can no longer scavenge for supplies and food. They must abandon the uncertain topography of the Dump and return to the city. 

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