The BURIED Book Club discussion

Came across this rather buried writer while reading this The Millions page by Stephen Dodson:

he was one of the pioneers of Russian science fiction, both Tolstoy and Dostoevsky praised him (his Serdtse i dumka [Heart and head, 1838] was one of Dostoevsky’s favorite novels), and he's tremendous fun to read. As far as I know, the only translation into English is Selected Stories ...

And later he goes on to describe some of his untranslated novels:

he kept writing books where you couldn’t make out what was going on for a long time (in Koshchei bessmertny [Koshchei the immortal, 1833], there is no mention of Koshchei until the twelfth chapter), and you just had to hold on tight and trust to the author’s fertile mind and ever-lively prose. It’s postmodern fiction, is what it is, and I think the world has finally caught up with it.

I think he has zero ratings and reviews on GR so far. Here is a link to his author page: A.F. Veltman

Although he does have an extensive English Wikipedia page, especially for a mostly untranslated writer: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexande...

Postmodern early Russian sci-fi?! Amazing / noted / thank you!

I had totally missed the link to "Selected Stories" the first time I read through this, and was coming up with nothing (without the translator's name) when trying to find anything by this guy in translation. So I'm glad you bumped this Nate.

And yes, this guy sounds amazing - I'll pop up a review after the story collection makes its way to me.

Definitely postmodern - especially surprising based on when he was writing - though this collection, unfortunately - outside of one small moment - has no hints of "one of the pioneers of Russian science fiction" which is a shame.

That said, this was a strong collection - here's my review. I wish there was more than just this available in English...

Great review! Thanks.