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« Les livres racontent toute l’histoire humaine. Ils renferment la connaissance, ils nous relient à notre passé, ils explorent toutes les facettes de l’âme humaine. Ce bâtiment recèle des milliers de livres. Des milliers de trésors. »
Au programme du quatrième recueil de nouvelles de Pierre Bordage : des voyages, intergalactiques surtout ; des rencontres déroutantes avec des espèces extraterrestres, à la fois si proches et si différentes de nous ; tant de futurs possibles à explorer. Quel que soit le paysage que l’auteur choisit de nous faire parcourir, il nous invite à toujours garder l’esprit et le cœur ouverts. C’est là le fil rouge entre toutes ses œuvres.
Au programme du quatrième recueil de nouvelles de Pierre Bordage : des voyages, intergalactiques surtout ; des rencontres déroutantes avec des espèces extraterrestres, à la fois si proches et si différentes de nous ; tant de futurs possibles à explorer. Quel que soit le paysage que l’auteur choisit de nous faire parcourir, il nous invite à toujours garder l’esprit et le cœur ouverts. C’est là le fil rouge entre toutes ses œuvres.
240 pages, Paperback
Published April 24, 2025
1 person is currently reading
10 people want to read
About the author
Pierre Bordage
181 books131 followersPierre Bordage a grandi en Vendée. Aimant le sport, il pratiquera pendant neuf ans le karaté. Il s'inscrit en lettres modernes à la faculté de Nantes. En 1975, au cours d'un atelier d'écriture, il découvre la science-fiction avec notamment les Chroniques martiennes de Ray Bradbury.
Il fera plusieurs voyages en Asie et pratiquera différents métiers, dont celui de libraire pendant plusieurs années.
En 1985, alors qu'il habite dans le Gers, il écrit son premier roman Les Guerriers du Silence qu'aucune maison d'édition n'acceptera. Il devient journaliste sportif, déménage à Paris où il rencontre en 1992 son premier éditeur, Vaugirard, qui lui propose d'écrire le Cycle de Rohel le Conquérant.
L'année suivante, il découvre chez un petit éditeur nantais, l'Atalante, un ouvrage de l'écrivain américain Orson Scott Card, traduit par son ancien professeur de banjo, Patrick Couton. Il leur propose alors Guerriers du Silence qui est accepté. Le livre est un succès inattendu et reçoit plusieurs prix littéraires, dont le Grand Prix de l'Imaginaire, le Prix Julia Verlanger, le Prix Cosmos 2000...
Il publie les deux autres tomes de la trilogie, puis en 1998 Wang, couronné par l'éphémère Prix de la Tour Eiffel et le premier volume d'Abzalon, toujours chez L'Atalante.
En 2000, primé par le Prix Paul Féval pour Les Fables de l'Humpur, il met à jour chez Librio le roman-feuilleton en six épisodes : Les Derniers hommes.
L'Évangile du serpent et L'Ange de l'Abîme paraissent, en 2001, chez le Diable Vauvert.
En 2008 Pierre Bordage innove de nouveau en s'associant avec l'entreprise mp3minutes pour produire un roman audio et vidéo à partir d'un scénario inédit. Cette bande dessinée vidéo s'intitule Chroniques des Ombres, actuellement téléchargeable sur le web.
Pierre Bordage s'est installé dans le sud-est de la Loire-Atlantique, à Boussay, avec sa femme et ses deux enfants.
Fin janvier 2009, sa femme décède, victime d'un accident de la route en Inde[
Il fera plusieurs voyages en Asie et pratiquera différents métiers, dont celui de libraire pendant plusieurs années.
En 1985, alors qu'il habite dans le Gers, il écrit son premier roman Les Guerriers du Silence qu'aucune maison d'édition n'acceptera. Il devient journaliste sportif, déménage à Paris où il rencontre en 1992 son premier éditeur, Vaugirard, qui lui propose d'écrire le Cycle de Rohel le Conquérant.
L'année suivante, il découvre chez un petit éditeur nantais, l'Atalante, un ouvrage de l'écrivain américain Orson Scott Card, traduit par son ancien professeur de banjo, Patrick Couton. Il leur propose alors Guerriers du Silence qui est accepté. Le livre est un succès inattendu et reçoit plusieurs prix littéraires, dont le Grand Prix de l'Imaginaire, le Prix Julia Verlanger, le Prix Cosmos 2000...
Il publie les deux autres tomes de la trilogie, puis en 1998 Wang, couronné par l'éphémère Prix de la Tour Eiffel et le premier volume d'Abzalon, toujours chez L'Atalante.
En 2000, primé par le Prix Paul Féval pour Les Fables de l'Humpur, il met à jour chez Librio le roman-feuilleton en six épisodes : Les Derniers hommes.
L'Évangile du serpent et L'Ange de l'Abîme paraissent, en 2001, chez le Diable Vauvert.
En 2008 Pierre Bordage innove de nouveau en s'associant avec l'entreprise mp3minutes pour produire un roman audio et vidéo à partir d'un scénario inédit. Cette bande dessinée vidéo s'intitule Chroniques des Ombres, actuellement téléchargeable sur le web.
Pierre Bordage s'est installé dans le sud-est de la Loire-Atlantique, à Boussay, avec sa femme et ses deux enfants.
Fin janvier 2009, sa femme décède, victime d'un accident de la route en Inde[
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
September 1, 2025
A little later than before, unless there was no real plan to follow the 6-years sequence, a new short story collection by one of France's best-known SFFF-authors (Pierre Bordage), sees the light of day. Such a book is a collection of previously and elsewhere (newspapers, magazines, anthologies) published stories, completed with one or a few new ones.
So far, three of these collections had been published and are still available:
* Nouvelle Vie™ (2004) (my review)
* Dernières Nouvelles de la Terre (2010) (my review)
* Hier je vous donnerai de mes nouvelles (2016) (my review)
While I have not read those in chronological order, I did like them. Therefore, my hopes were quite high when I learnt that a fourth book would be published. Pierre Bordage had, until today, published three other short story collections via a different publisher (Seuil), which I all liked very much:
* Contes des sages d'autres temps et d'autres mondes (2020) (my review)
* Contes des sages pas sages (2022) (my review)
* Contes des sages d'outre-tombe (2024) (my review)
I had high hopes, because some of his last works with short stories (Contes de sages...) are actually very good and among his best works of the last few years, I find. Unfortunately, I can't say the same thing about his last few novels, even if I haven't read them all. His older works are still on my TBR-pile, and very often cited as his best works, so I'll dive into them in due time.
This latest selection contains, for the majority, stories I've read previously and liked or not. They do show that Pierre Bordage can shift focus when needed and even provide material that could evolve into a full-blown novel. Whether or not this will happen, always remains to be seen. But, considering the stories and the new one (self-titled), I have to admit that this is the weakest or least strong collection of the four so far published.
----------
01) Si tu ne vas pas à Nantes (2022, Désirs d'ailleurs - Les Voyages sonores des Utopiales 2022) - 3/5
Very short story, originally in audio version (see the link above), set in a futuristic version of the city of Nantes, France. Transferred into space, set on a new planet. Beam me up, Scotty, but everything at once, not just people, but also the city and everything in it, like scooping up a clump of dirt with the flower or plant still in it.
02) Sans destination (2017, Destinations - Anthologie des Imaginales 2017 - review) - 2/5
Pierre Bordage has two become one of my favourite French authors. I've already read a few of his works and still have three large omnibuses on my TBR-pile "(La Trilogie des Guerriers du silence", "Le Livre des prophéties"). Short-stories are more of a test field (as he said in an interview some years ago), although he can write a good one when all's well. Bordage, in my opinion, needs to be able to take the time to develop a story, to have it unfold its secrets. A short-story isn't the best option then. It pains me to admit it, but this story was a bit disappointing. It's about two people finding it hard to make ends meet, and decide to go on a journey. Fate brings them together, on the same space-fight, the same ship, the same destination. And what did you think? Yes, indeed. What bothered me: The story felt a little too easy, too predictable, too much on automatic pilot. Bordage can do much better than that, as the majority of his latest short-story anthology, Hier je vous donnerai de mes nouvelles, shows. See my review (in French) here.
03) Mobipolis (2023, Le Futur de la cité - Anthologie des Imaginales 2023) - 1/5
Story that is a bit too simple. Set in space (could also just be Earth), another city transferred to a far-out planet. City has technology to travel far and wide. City was bought by some enterprise who resold it for profit. New company wanted to sell the technology for even more profit (licences).
Kid visits city, meets local inhabitant, is taken with him and the couple explains their situation. Wow, talk about trusting strangers and strangers explaining their oppressed situation to a kid. Of course, there's the "Stazi", as these people of Mobipolis can't roam freely or express themselves freely. Kid decides to become a lawyer to protect the rights of refugees. His parents don't even ask where he's been all this time. Bordage has written better stories to address sociopolitical issues.
04) Aliéné.e.s (supposedly new, but it was published before in the Aliénation anthology in 2024) - 3/5
An respected author is chosen to be the official reporter of the Parliament, which oversees also the spatial activities of their civilisation, and write epic reports - "inspired by fiction, if needed" - about occurring events. Including conquering or "installing order" on planets whose peoples have a different culture and behaviour, be it pacific or violent, in any case unknown or not researched. Until a high-placed officer questions the army's latest mission of waging war against an enemy supposedly violent, aggressive, and detrimental to the causes of the Parliament. Mutiny! And yet, the admiral of the fleet can't do anything, as too many soldiers have also chosen to not fight the "alienated". Our author is invited to write historically correct stories about the "alienated", and not stories that inflate the Parliament so-called "heroic" image. All in all, a good story, classic Bordage, though he's written better ones around this theme.
05) La Perle du Sagittaire (2017, Anthologie du monstre) - 3/5
Researchers in space, on a mission to examine the surfaces of various planets in the arm the Sagittarius constellation. This to find out if humans could ever live there. They find a flow of red liquid, trying to guess if it's a river. Upon exploring the rest of the planet, they approach a dark area, have to continue on foot, especially when their module is about to crash due to technical failure. Remains of a city caught their eyes. But as the both researchers progress, they stumble upon... a monster. And the city was no city and the river... was blood.
Not a bad story - and certainly not among Bordage's best - considering the target audience was young readers. More info in this interview on ActuSF.com.
06) Trex (2023, Monstres (Hypermondes, #3)) - 4/5
This story was previously published in the third anthology of the festival Hypermondes. The anthology was not available via the regular sources, i.e. online and brick-and-mortar bookshops, but only via the website of the publisher, Les Moutons Électriques, who went bankrupt earlier in 2025. This is another space story in which humans (or rather, a group of soldiers) try to communicate with (so-called) monsters on a distant planet. And exolinguist is with them to make sure the talks occur as smoothly as possible. Of course, not everything goes as foreseen; on the contrary: the creatures communicate mentally and seem to have foreseen mankind's aggression. Bordage has always dealt with such issues: them vs us, the other, but on a more philosophical or spiritual level. To present people with a mirror. Like in this story: who's the real monster? This reminded me, in a way, of Tobias O. Meißner's novel "Barbarendämmerung" (2012, review).
07) Amertumes (2023, Déguster le noir) - 3/5
Pierre Bordage doesn't only write fantasy or science fiction, but also a detective story, if need be. A story about a food taster who didn't detect the poison in the president's dish. He suspects it to be a new kind of poison or rather a new type of product. Alas for him, he's arrested and interrogated in a violent way in order to get a confession out of him. In the end, he has no other choice (despite his innocence), but to no avail.
08) Et le verbe se fit cher (2019 - Par-delà l'horizon - review) - 4/5
A language-based story by one of France's grand authors. Premise: Authors and publishers are to pay for the words they use. A new international charter or law, only applied to the book sector (journalists, influencers, ... are exempt), has decreed that words are goods, need to be paid for. A long list has been compiled, each word or type of word linked to a tariff. Publishers impose this new regulation on their authors, but as they don't make that much money, a solution must be found to avoid this new "tax" or pay as little as possible. So it happens: homonyms. Fool the system by using words that sound the same and still manage to come up with a coherent story. Until the Association of French Editors takes that idea to create their own list of taxable words, based on the logic of the author(s) who came up with the brilliant alternative. While trying to sail around the international regulation, they created their own and were fooled on a national level. Not every law or regulation created by the free market makes sense or is beneficial to those subjected to it, finding an alternative to circumvent it can even cause one to be chained even more. Everything can be turned into a tradable good, from air over water to language.
09) H+ (2018, Dimension Technosciences @ Venir) - 4/5
Another story set in the future with "H+" standing for "augmented", "more than human" and alike. Well, technically. Compared to what our parents and we received as presents, this boy gets advanced technological implants: one to change his skin colour, another to increase the number of languages he can speak (incl. dead ones), another to know everything about space. And what about following a course to know all about classical music, the painters of old, ...?
His sister was less fortunate and also suffered from a genetic disorder. Fortunately, there's a company that modified said gene so that the girl could love a more normal life. Alas, no solution is infallible, so updates and modifications are constantly researched and tested.
The boy gets to go on a trip with his "parent" (his uncle, only it's not specified in this way) to Tanzania, but never arrives. The plane is hijacked by Libyan rebels who desire to live a normal, not an augmented life. The boy, as the rebels are not inhumane, is released together with other children and pregnant women. He meets some local people near the airport, communicates with them via his implants. As he's a digital native (and kind of spoilt), he has no desire to lead a normal life, only his digital bubble is what matters (and not staying behind compared to his "friends"), even if the relationships with his direct family members is more of a functional than a human one.
An ok story, but one that also offers food for thought about trans-humanism and its various aspects, not to mention the sociopolitical consequences.
10) De Hauts en Bas (2022, Travailler encore ? - review) - 2/5
People underground working hard to support/help their comrades who decided to remain above ground. Two children, though, seeking to find out what's underground, as the boy found his comfortable life a little too comfortable. While following the theme (and showing the contrast), Mr Bordage has written better stories.
11) De l'avant (2019, MMCXIX: Les Futurs Des Belles Lettres - review) - 3/5
Pierre Bordage usually writes short stories with a spiritual/philosophical layer. For this mission, he took some historical characters like Ulysses (Odysseus in Latin), the Greek goddess Athena, and others whose names I can't link to historical, except maybe Clov (Clovis I, because there's also mention of Thilde akaClothilde, the queen), or mythical characters, because Mr Bordage twisted their names a little. The setting is, based on the mention of atomic explosions ("la Grande Déflagration"), World War II. Or just after the war. However, with other alliances compared to the alliances of our own WW2.
It's a dystopian story, a bit similar to "Les Derniers Hommes", but with historical characters. Earth has been ravaged because of the bombs. So, our characters live as brutal savages, back to the basics of mankind. They come upon a bird, an owl, which is the animal spirit of Athena. As they are not familiar with such animals, it's considered a threat, must thus be eradicated. They fail, but the owl will, with its "owner" Vieux (Old Man), guide the group to a treasure. And so, after a long voyage with some perils and a bit of Earth's history, they find the "treasure", thanks to Athena's guidance. The treasure? It concerns mankind's history throughout the ages. Vital information to rebuild society.
All in all, a good story, but by the book and in hindsight, quite predictable. Mr Bordage has written better ones. Especially with the renaming of the historical characters - again, several of which I can't link - and the absence of any clarity in that respect, he could have named them any way he liked. Oh, and why oh why did he have to add a sex scene, however briefly? Totally unnecessary, totally not adding anything pertinent to the story. As was also the case in "Inkarmations", which I have read earlier this year.
12) Sanctuaires (2021 - Nos Futurs - review) - 4/5
'Sanctuaires' is a story where a young teenage couple travels to one of the sanctuaries in a dried-up France. Everyone has an implanted chip for tracking, payments, communication, and more. Except those in the sanctuary, who have been cut off from the Internet and modern civilisation for several decades. They used the principles of capitalism against the modern world: repurchase lands to let wildlife come back again and flourish, causing political and agricultural uproar, as these lands could not be farmed or exploited. It allowed for our teens to see species again that hadn't been seen in the rest of France (and the world) for many decades. In short, another story showing we need nature more than nature needs humans.
13) Nouvelles Vagues (2025) - 1/5
This self-titled story is a new one. It's reminiscent of good ol' Bordage, about life and the impact of religion. The story's set in space, but that doesn't mean that religion doesn't have any power there. On the contrary. If you're not adherent to the right side, you'll be burnt at the stakes for heresy. And yet... saved by the bell, eh, a woman. Of course, said woman is not your ordinary women, no, she's splendid and hot. Alas, there's also a reason for that, or is it a cause for what goes on in the mind of the "heretic"? Theme-wise ok, but on a whole, not the best of Bordage at all, rather a reflection of his last few works.
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----------
Previously read by Pierre Bordage, in chronological order: (not counting his stories published in various anthologies since his last collection)
* Chroniques des ombres (my review)
* Hier je vous donnerai de mes nouvelles (my review)
* Le Jour où la guerre s'arrêta (my review)
* Entretiens avec Pierre Bordage (my review)
* Contes des sages d'autres mondes et d'autres temps (my review)
* Contes des sages pas sages (my review)
* Dernières nouvelles de la Terre... (my review)
* Les Dames blanches (my review)
* Nouvelle Vie™ (my review)
* Les Derniers Hommes (my review)
* La Désolation (Arkane, #1) (my review) + La Résurrection (Arkane, #2) (my review)
* Gigante (my review)
* Contes des sages d'outre-tombe (my review)
* Inkarmations (my review)
So far, three of these collections had been published and are still available:
* Nouvelle Vie™ (2004) (my review)
* Dernières Nouvelles de la Terre (2010) (my review)
* Hier je vous donnerai de mes nouvelles (2016) (my review)
While I have not read those in chronological order, I did like them. Therefore, my hopes were quite high when I learnt that a fourth book would be published. Pierre Bordage had, until today, published three other short story collections via a different publisher (Seuil), which I all liked very much:
* Contes des sages d'autres temps et d'autres mondes (2020) (my review)
* Contes des sages pas sages (2022) (my review)
* Contes des sages d'outre-tombe (2024) (my review)
I had high hopes, because some of his last works with short stories (Contes de sages...) are actually very good and among his best works of the last few years, I find. Unfortunately, I can't say the same thing about his last few novels, even if I haven't read them all. His older works are still on my TBR-pile, and very often cited as his best works, so I'll dive into them in due time.
This latest selection contains, for the majority, stories I've read previously and liked or not. They do show that Pierre Bordage can shift focus when needed and even provide material that could evolve into a full-blown novel. Whether or not this will happen, always remains to be seen. But, considering the stories and the new one (self-titled), I have to admit that this is the weakest or least strong collection of the four so far published.
----------
01) Si tu ne vas pas à Nantes (2022, Désirs d'ailleurs - Les Voyages sonores des Utopiales 2022) - 3/5
Very short story, originally in audio version (see the link above), set in a futuristic version of the city of Nantes, France. Transferred into space, set on a new planet. Beam me up, Scotty, but everything at once, not just people, but also the city and everything in it, like scooping up a clump of dirt with the flower or plant still in it.
02) Sans destination (2017, Destinations - Anthologie des Imaginales 2017 - review) - 2/5
Pierre Bordage has two become one of my favourite French authors. I've already read a few of his works and still have three large omnibuses on my TBR-pile "(La Trilogie des Guerriers du silence", "Le Livre des prophéties"). Short-stories are more of a test field (as he said in an interview some years ago), although he can write a good one when all's well. Bordage, in my opinion, needs to be able to take the time to develop a story, to have it unfold its secrets. A short-story isn't the best option then. It pains me to admit it, but this story was a bit disappointing. It's about two people finding it hard to make ends meet, and decide to go on a journey. Fate brings them together, on the same space-fight, the same ship, the same destination. And what did you think? Yes, indeed. What bothered me: The story felt a little too easy, too predictable, too much on automatic pilot. Bordage can do much better than that, as the majority of his latest short-story anthology, Hier je vous donnerai de mes nouvelles, shows. See my review (in French) here.
03) Mobipolis (2023, Le Futur de la cité - Anthologie des Imaginales 2023) - 1/5
Story that is a bit too simple. Set in space (could also just be Earth), another city transferred to a far-out planet. City has technology to travel far and wide. City was bought by some enterprise who resold it for profit. New company wanted to sell the technology for even more profit (licences).
Kid visits city, meets local inhabitant, is taken with him and the couple explains their situation. Wow, talk about trusting strangers and strangers explaining their oppressed situation to a kid. Of course, there's the "Stazi", as these people of Mobipolis can't roam freely or express themselves freely. Kid decides to become a lawyer to protect the rights of refugees. His parents don't even ask where he's been all this time. Bordage has written better stories to address sociopolitical issues.
04) Aliéné.e.s (supposedly new, but it was published before in the Aliénation anthology in 2024) - 3/5
An respected author is chosen to be the official reporter of the Parliament, which oversees also the spatial activities of their civilisation, and write epic reports - "inspired by fiction, if needed" - about occurring events. Including conquering or "installing order" on planets whose peoples have a different culture and behaviour, be it pacific or violent, in any case unknown or not researched. Until a high-placed officer questions the army's latest mission of waging war against an enemy supposedly violent, aggressive, and detrimental to the causes of the Parliament. Mutiny! And yet, the admiral of the fleet can't do anything, as too many soldiers have also chosen to not fight the "alienated". Our author is invited to write historically correct stories about the "alienated", and not stories that inflate the Parliament so-called "heroic" image. All in all, a good story, classic Bordage, though he's written better ones around this theme.
05) La Perle du Sagittaire (2017, Anthologie du monstre) - 3/5
Researchers in space, on a mission to examine the surfaces of various planets in the arm the Sagittarius constellation. This to find out if humans could ever live there. They find a flow of red liquid, trying to guess if it's a river. Upon exploring the rest of the planet, they approach a dark area, have to continue on foot, especially when their module is about to crash due to technical failure. Remains of a city caught their eyes. But as the both researchers progress, they stumble upon... a monster. And the city was no city and the river... was blood.
Not a bad story - and certainly not among Bordage's best - considering the target audience was young readers. More info in this interview on ActuSF.com.
06) Trex (2023, Monstres (Hypermondes, #3)) - 4/5
This story was previously published in the third anthology of the festival Hypermondes. The anthology was not available via the regular sources, i.e. online and brick-and-mortar bookshops, but only via the website of the publisher, Les Moutons Électriques, who went bankrupt earlier in 2025. This is another space story in which humans (or rather, a group of soldiers) try to communicate with (so-called) monsters on a distant planet. And exolinguist is with them to make sure the talks occur as smoothly as possible. Of course, not everything goes as foreseen; on the contrary: the creatures communicate mentally and seem to have foreseen mankind's aggression. Bordage has always dealt with such issues: them vs us, the other, but on a more philosophical or spiritual level. To present people with a mirror. Like in this story: who's the real monster? This reminded me, in a way, of Tobias O. Meißner's novel "Barbarendämmerung" (2012, review).
07) Amertumes (2023, Déguster le noir) - 3/5
Pierre Bordage doesn't only write fantasy or science fiction, but also a detective story, if need be. A story about a food taster who didn't detect the poison in the president's dish. He suspects it to be a new kind of poison or rather a new type of product. Alas for him, he's arrested and interrogated in a violent way in order to get a confession out of him. In the end, he has no other choice (despite his innocence), but to no avail.
08) Et le verbe se fit cher (2019 - Par-delà l'horizon - review) - 4/5
A language-based story by one of France's grand authors. Premise: Authors and publishers are to pay for the words they use. A new international charter or law, only applied to the book sector (journalists, influencers, ... are exempt), has decreed that words are goods, need to be paid for. A long list has been compiled, each word or type of word linked to a tariff. Publishers impose this new regulation on their authors, but as they don't make that much money, a solution must be found to avoid this new "tax" or pay as little as possible. So it happens: homonyms. Fool the system by using words that sound the same and still manage to come up with a coherent story. Until the Association of French Editors takes that idea to create their own list of taxable words, based on the logic of the author(s) who came up with the brilliant alternative. While trying to sail around the international regulation, they created their own and were fooled on a national level. Not every law or regulation created by the free market makes sense or is beneficial to those subjected to it, finding an alternative to circumvent it can even cause one to be chained even more. Everything can be turned into a tradable good, from air over water to language.
09) H+ (2018, Dimension Technosciences @ Venir) - 4/5
Another story set in the future with "H+" standing for "augmented", "more than human" and alike. Well, technically. Compared to what our parents and we received as presents, this boy gets advanced technological implants: one to change his skin colour, another to increase the number of languages he can speak (incl. dead ones), another to know everything about space. And what about following a course to know all about classical music, the painters of old, ...?
His sister was less fortunate and also suffered from a genetic disorder. Fortunately, there's a company that modified said gene so that the girl could love a more normal life. Alas, no solution is infallible, so updates and modifications are constantly researched and tested.
The boy gets to go on a trip with his "parent" (his uncle, only it's not specified in this way) to Tanzania, but never arrives. The plane is hijacked by Libyan rebels who desire to live a normal, not an augmented life. The boy, as the rebels are not inhumane, is released together with other children and pregnant women. He meets some local people near the airport, communicates with them via his implants. As he's a digital native (and kind of spoilt), he has no desire to lead a normal life, only his digital bubble is what matters (and not staying behind compared to his "friends"), even if the relationships with his direct family members is more of a functional than a human one.
An ok story, but one that also offers food for thought about trans-humanism and its various aspects, not to mention the sociopolitical consequences.
10) De Hauts en Bas (2022, Travailler encore ? - review) - 2/5
People underground working hard to support/help their comrades who decided to remain above ground. Two children, though, seeking to find out what's underground, as the boy found his comfortable life a little too comfortable. While following the theme (and showing the contrast), Mr Bordage has written better stories.
11) De l'avant (2019, MMCXIX: Les Futurs Des Belles Lettres - review) - 3/5
Pierre Bordage usually writes short stories with a spiritual/philosophical layer. For this mission, he took some historical characters like Ulysses (Odysseus in Latin), the Greek goddess Athena, and others whose names I can't link to historical, except maybe Clov (Clovis I, because there's also mention of Thilde akaClothilde, the queen), or mythical characters, because Mr Bordage twisted their names a little. The setting is, based on the mention of atomic explosions ("la Grande Déflagration"), World War II. Or just after the war. However, with other alliances compared to the alliances of our own WW2.
It's a dystopian story, a bit similar to "Les Derniers Hommes", but with historical characters. Earth has been ravaged because of the bombs. So, our characters live as brutal savages, back to the basics of mankind. They come upon a bird, an owl, which is the animal spirit of Athena. As they are not familiar with such animals, it's considered a threat, must thus be eradicated. They fail, but the owl will, with its "owner" Vieux (Old Man), guide the group to a treasure. And so, after a long voyage with some perils and a bit of Earth's history, they find the "treasure", thanks to Athena's guidance. The treasure? It concerns mankind's history throughout the ages. Vital information to rebuild society.
All in all, a good story, but by the book and in hindsight, quite predictable. Mr Bordage has written better ones. Especially with the renaming of the historical characters - again, several of which I can't link - and the absence of any clarity in that respect, he could have named them any way he liked. Oh, and why oh why did he have to add a sex scene, however briefly? Totally unnecessary, totally not adding anything pertinent to the story. As was also the case in "Inkarmations", which I have read earlier this year.
12) Sanctuaires (2021 - Nos Futurs - review) - 4/5
'Sanctuaires' is a story where a young teenage couple travels to one of the sanctuaries in a dried-up France. Everyone has an implanted chip for tracking, payments, communication, and more. Except those in the sanctuary, who have been cut off from the Internet and modern civilisation for several decades. They used the principles of capitalism against the modern world: repurchase lands to let wildlife come back again and flourish, causing political and agricultural uproar, as these lands could not be farmed or exploited. It allowed for our teens to see species again that hadn't been seen in the rest of France (and the world) for many decades. In short, another story showing we need nature more than nature needs humans.
13) Nouvelles Vagues (2025) - 1/5
This self-titled story is a new one. It's reminiscent of good ol' Bordage, about life and the impact of religion. The story's set in space, but that doesn't mean that religion doesn't have any power there. On the contrary. If you're not adherent to the right side, you'll be burnt at the stakes for heresy. And yet... saved by the bell, eh, a woman. Of course, said woman is not your ordinary women, no, she's splendid and hot. Alas, there's also a reason for that, or is it a cause for what goes on in the mind of the "heretic"? Theme-wise ok, but on a whole, not the best of Bordage at all, rather a reflection of his last few works.
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Previously read by Pierre Bordage, in chronological order: (not counting his stories published in various anthologies since his last collection)
* Chroniques des ombres (my review)
* Hier je vous donnerai de mes nouvelles (my review)
* Le Jour où la guerre s'arrêta (my review)
* Entretiens avec Pierre Bordage (my review)
* Contes des sages d'autres mondes et d'autres temps (my review)
* Contes des sages pas sages (my review)
* Dernières nouvelles de la Terre... (my review)
* Les Dames blanches (my review)
* Nouvelle Vie™ (my review)
* Les Derniers Hommes (my review)
* La Désolation (Arkane, #1) (my review) + La Résurrection (Arkane, #2) (my review)
* Gigante (my review)
* Contes des sages d'outre-tombe (my review)
* Inkarmations (my review)
November 8, 2025
3 étoiles car on peut pas mettre 2.5.
jai bien aimé 😛🤩
- les mondes décrits (dans certaines nouvelles)
jai pas aimé 😐😾
- le style d’écriture plat et ennuyant
- la (très habituelle) critique de la société par un auteur français (je trouve que les auteurs français ont une façon de palabrer sur le capitalisme, l’écologie ou les problématiques sociales qui est TRÈS caricaturale, et que je trouve franchement ridicule. c’est très niannian, manichéen et stéréotypé. ex ce livre, La nuit des temps de R. Barjavel ou par exemple les furtifs (dans une moindre mesure) de Mr Damasio (dont j’ai adoré La horde du contrevent) en fait c’est vraiment pas subtile et cherché, à l’inverse je trouve que d’autres livres sont bien meilleurs dans le traitement de ces thématiques ex. brave new world ou encore 1984 (le gars ENNUYANT mais bon dsl))
jai bien aimé 😛🤩
- les mondes décrits (dans certaines nouvelles)
jai pas aimé 😐😾
- le style d’écriture plat et ennuyant
- la (très habituelle) critique de la société par un auteur français (je trouve que les auteurs français ont une façon de palabrer sur le capitalisme, l’écologie ou les problématiques sociales qui est TRÈS caricaturale, et que je trouve franchement ridicule. c’est très niannian, manichéen et stéréotypé. ex ce livre, La nuit des temps de R. Barjavel ou par exemple les furtifs (dans une moindre mesure) de Mr Damasio (dont j’ai adoré La horde du contrevent) en fait c’est vraiment pas subtile et cherché, à l’inverse je trouve que d’autres livres sont bien meilleurs dans le traitement de ces thématiques ex. brave new world ou encore 1984 (le gars ENNUYANT mais bon dsl))
June 30, 2025
On oscille sans arrêt entre nouvelles sans intérêt, où l'on se demande "mais encore...?" et récits jouissifs d'une grande justesse, qui dépeignent les travers humains dans d'angoissants futurs hypothétiques.
En vrai, dès que ça parlait d'aliens, j'ai trouvé ça nul. Cucul, déjà vu, maladroit, enfantin, surfait. En revanche, Bordage maîtrise super bien les sociétés dystopiques, dans des histoires où on se dit "mais on y est déjà en fait"...
En vrai, dès que ça parlait d'aliens, j'ai trouvé ça nul. Cucul, déjà vu, maladroit, enfantin, surfait. En revanche, Bordage maîtrise super bien les sociétés dystopiques, dans des histoires où on se dit "mais on y est déjà en fait"...
February 22, 2026
Lecture intéressante rendue agréable par le format de recueil de nouvelles. Cependant, l'auteur a des takes très douteuses. J'ai assez vite compris que j'avais affaire à une personne âgée avec beaucoup (trop) de certitudes erronées sur le fonctionnement du monde. A l'analyse matérialiste du monde, l'auteur substitue ses affects et ses craintes. C'est sans doute intéressant en cela qu'il incarne à la perfection l'archétype psychologique du vieil homme blanc de la France du XXIe avec sans doute un VAGUE passé "anar" de salon : il parle d'un axe "sino-americain" (absurde) quand il essaye de faire de l'anticipation géopolitique, il est d'un nationalisme français effarant (que l'on ressent à de nombreux passages du bouquin) et il a une vision générale de l'humain d'un pessimisme qui frise parfois le ridicul. Lorsqu'il parle de l'effondrement après une guerre nucléaire, il décrit une société de la concurrence entre bandes rivales... Pour nuancer : j'ai aimé qu'il apporte à ce propos lui-même un peu de profondeur en décrivant des modes d'élections de chefs / de partages de butins de nature quelque peu collectiviste. C'est comme si il n'avait simplement pas assez de formation théorique et de lecture historiques/économiques/militantes à son actif pour penser un monde post-capitalisme. La représentation des femmes est aussi un peu douteuse dans cet ouvrage. La dernière nouvelle en particulier semble faire une analogie douteuse entre une religion fictive et l'islam par l'image d'une femme voilée qui s'émancipe de son voile et de sa foi. Le problème des femmes dans des pays comme l'Iran n'est pas l'islam (conclusion de cet auteur) s'il est nul besoin de le rappeler... Le problème c'est le patriarcat et le fait que des HOMMES controle la tenue des femmes (point que l'auteur rate totalement). Le traitement de certaines relations était cela dit très réussi, en particulier dans les premières nouvelles où on trouve des conclusions romantiques saines entre personnages (ça change et ça fait du bien). En résumé un auteur un peu conservateur et confus mais qui maîtrise son médium et que j'ai pris du plaisir à lire. Merci à mon amoureuse pour ce chouette cadeau <3
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