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The Road to Nowhere
Rodolfo Martínez is a Spanish Science Fiction writer with an international voice. One of Spain’s most respected SF authors, Martínez has won multiple awards for his novels and short fiction.
The Road To Nowhere is his first English language short story collection, and represents his finest work to date, as selected by the author. Thirteen stories drawn from a career spanning more than twenty years, tales that explore humankind’s relationship with technology, with AI, with alien worlds, and with one another.
“From mysterious alien roads to haunting riffs on cyberspace, to time paradoxes, here’s a full spectrum of event-driven tales almost addictive in their enjoyability. These stories are engaging and ingenious, chatty, vivid, and robust. Here’s an eloquent Spanish SF author whom we should have been reading for the past 20 years, and now at last we can.”
– Ian Watson, author of the screen story for Steven Spielberg’s A.I. Artificial Intelligence
Introduction
A Tale of No City
Loaded Dice
God’s Messenger
Eternal Return
This Lightning, This Madness
The Road
We have Followed You
Everything Flows
In God’s Mind
Think Whatever You Want
Pyrrhic Victory
At the Penthouse
About the Author
The Road To Nowhere is his first English language short story collection, and represents his finest work to date, as selected by the author. Thirteen stories drawn from a career spanning more than twenty years, tales that explore humankind’s relationship with technology, with AI, with alien worlds, and with one another.
“From mysterious alien roads to haunting riffs on cyberspace, to time paradoxes, here’s a full spectrum of event-driven tales almost addictive in their enjoyability. These stories are engaging and ingenious, chatty, vivid, and robust. Here’s an eloquent Spanish SF author whom we should have been reading for the past 20 years, and now at last we can.”
– Ian Watson, author of the screen story for Steven Spielberg’s A.I. Artificial Intelligence
Introduction
A Tale of No City
Loaded Dice
God’s Messenger
Eternal Return
This Lightning, This Madness
The Road
We have Followed You
Everything Flows
In God’s Mind
Think Whatever You Want
Pyrrhic Victory
At the Penthouse
About the Author
185 pages, Kindle Edition
Published February 2, 2019
2 people want to read
About the author
Rodolfo Martínez
188 books95 followersRodolfo Martínez (Candás, Asturias, 1965) es un escritor español de fantasía y ciencia ficción.
Descubre la ciencia ficción y la fantasía siendo niño, probablemente a través de los cómics de superhéroes y, posteriormente, a través de su padre, lector habitual del género.
Cursó estudios de filología inglesa, aunque no llegó a terminarlos y, desde 1995, trabaja como programador informático.
Comenzó a publicar relatos en revistas y fanzines en la década de los noventa y en 1995 publica su primera novela, La sonrisa del gato.
Rodolfo Martínez es una personalidad dentro del fandom en España, no sólo como autor, sino también por la labor que ha desarrollado dentro de diferentes asociaciones y publicaciones.
Descubre la ciencia ficción y la fantasía siendo niño, probablemente a través de los cómics de superhéroes y, posteriormente, a través de su padre, lector habitual del género.
Cursó estudios de filología inglesa, aunque no llegó a terminarlos y, desde 1995, trabaja como programador informático.
Comenzó a publicar relatos en revistas y fanzines en la década de los noventa y en 1995 publica su primera novela, La sonrisa del gato.
Rodolfo Martínez es una personalidad dentro del fandom en España, no sólo como autor, sino también por la labor que ha desarrollado dentro de diferentes asociaciones y publicaciones.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
October 16, 2022
A book of 12 short, mainly SF, stories by Spanish author Rodolfo Martinez. The copy I have is a nice edition by NewCon Press, a signed special edition limited to 50 copies. This collection is, apparently, his first English language short story collection.
It's the first time I have come across this author and this book is a slightly mixed bag. There's some really good stories worthy of 4 stars but there's a couple that are terrible and would be lucky to get 1 star (in particular, one very short story of less than 2 pages called 'In Gods Mind' where I'm not sure what he's attempting, some kind of prose poem that must have sounded better in Spanish than it was translated, but includes the repetition 'In Gods Mind' seventeen times in a page and a half. He actually tries this same repetition method several times in his stories and it just doesn't work). In this collection, religion features more often than is the norm in SF. Maybe that is something to do with his Spanish upbringing, but I felt that the religious theme was overdone in this book.
There were also quite a few errors, possibly arising from the translation (such as words entered in the wrong tense so the sentence didn't make sense). These weren't too distracting until there were a few on one page which totally disrupted the flow of the story. The blurb at the back of the book says 'thirteen stories drawn from a career spanning more than twenty years'. There's actually twelve stories, which is a guide to the slight lack of care gone into this translation.
The pick of the collection was probably 'This Lightning, This Madness', which was also the longest story in the book at about 70 pages long (around a third of the entire book). This also had a religious theme to it, but also with references to superhero comics, and examined what may happen if a devoutly religious person was given super powers. It is queried whether the maxim 'with great power comes great responsibility' may be better served by not using the powers at all.
'Eternal Return' - a short story about time travel - was another highlight for me.
There was enough of interest in there to persuade me that this author may be worth another try, and if (or when) there are any English translations of his novels available then I will probably give them a try.
It's the first time I have come across this author and this book is a slightly mixed bag. There's some really good stories worthy of 4 stars but there's a couple that are terrible and would be lucky to get 1 star (in particular, one very short story of less than 2 pages called 'In Gods Mind' where I'm not sure what he's attempting, some kind of prose poem that must have sounded better in Spanish than it was translated, but includes the repetition 'In Gods Mind' seventeen times in a page and a half. He actually tries this same repetition method several times in his stories and it just doesn't work). In this collection, religion features more often than is the norm in SF. Maybe that is something to do with his Spanish upbringing, but I felt that the religious theme was overdone in this book.
There were also quite a few errors, possibly arising from the translation (such as words entered in the wrong tense so the sentence didn't make sense). These weren't too distracting until there were a few on one page which totally disrupted the flow of the story. The blurb at the back of the book says 'thirteen stories drawn from a career spanning more than twenty years'. There's actually twelve stories, which is a guide to the slight lack of care gone into this translation.
The pick of the collection was probably 'This Lightning, This Madness', which was also the longest story in the book at about 70 pages long (around a third of the entire book). This also had a religious theme to it, but also with references to superhero comics, and examined what may happen if a devoutly religious person was given super powers. It is queried whether the maxim 'with great power comes great responsibility' may be better served by not using the powers at all.
'Eternal Return' - a short story about time travel - was another highlight for me.
There was enough of interest in there to persuade me that this author may be worth another try, and if (or when) there are any English translations of his novels available then I will probably give them a try.
Displaying 1 of 1 review