Frankish worlds – Wikipedia

The frank worlds is a collection of French-speaking new fictional-published in 1988.

It is the first volume, out of six currently published, of the special series of The great anthology of science fiction .

This volume, devoted like the other works of the special series to French-speaking authors, brings together eighteen news published between 1953 and 1977.

‘ (…) The selection of news that makes up this anthology was made in the sole perspective of the quality and originality of the texts. It has no historical dimension, in the sense that anthologists did not try to reconstruct a past state of the genre, but to bring together texts which have retained all their news and which ensure the reader the same pleasure of reading as during their first publication. It is remarkable to find authors there who produced only a few texts and sometimes only one like Jean Porte, next to confirmed writers like Pierre Boulle, Philippe Curval, Jacques Sternberg or André Ruellan.

Retrospectively, the influence of American science fiction seems reduced. The importance given to the literary form is almost general, but stylistic research does not lead the authors to neglect the development of a strong idea. It is difficult to generate this anthology an overall impression. Perhaps these texts have in common, however, both a certain lyricism and a penchant for irony, even skepticism. No messianism here, nor galactic utopias. The future appears less as an open border than as a poetic field or as a source of reflection and concern. Even in humor, a certain gravity (…) appears. »

– Preface, p. 9 and 10

An endless night [ modifier | Modifier and code ]

• Author: Pierre Boulle.
• Situation in anthology: p. 13 to 54.
• Intrigue: a man, Oscar Vincent, meets a temporal traveler who, coming from the past and going to explore the future, stops in Paris at XX ^{It is} century. But immediately after, Oscar also meets another time traveler who comes from the future and goes back in time to the past. It appears that these two temporal travelers are the representatives of two civilizations who will wage war, or that were waged war: go know. There follows a rather wacky and surprising temporal ballet to know which of the two civilizations will prevail, under the eyes of Oscar who does not know how to get out of this surprising situation.

Charles reforestation accuses [ modifier | Modifier and code ]

• Author: Gébé (pseudonym of Georges Blondeaux).
• Situation in anthology: p. 55 to 65.
• Intrigue: A journalist goes to a press conference organized by Charles Refore-Coison, who claims to have made an extraordinary discovery.

Tomorrow [ modifier | Modifier and code ]

• Auteur: Jean-Paul Turkish.
• Publication: Unpublished (The first publication is made in this anthology).
• Note: Do not confuse this news with Tomorrow , Living novel Denon.
• Situation in anthology: p. 66 to 85.
• Summary: In a distant future, when human beings will have evolved so much that it will be difficult to differentiate men of men-robots, women of women-robots, will he remain something other than the search for Sexual pleasure? Love maybe? It’s not sure. Here is as proof of the story of Wilno, who hesitates between two women, Aurora (robot) and Diana (human). In the end he chooses Diana but is rejected by her, because she prefers her robot man.

It’s billiards! [ modifier | Modifier and code ]

• Author: Philippe Curval.
• Publication : The first anthology of French science fiction , anthology (dir .: Alain Dorémieux), May 1959 .
• Situation in anthology: p. 86 to 100.
• Summary: Brief slice of life of a “frecking ace”, which plays very well from the Gottlieb in a distant and dreamlike future.
• External links :

The nervous rose [ modifier | Modifier and code ]

So far from the world … [ modifier | Modifier and code ]

• Author: Jacques Sternberg.
• Publication : Future without future , Collection of short stories by Jacques Sternberg, 1971.
• Note: The longest news in the collection (66 pages).
• Situation in anthology: p. 134 to 201.
• Intrigue: under cover of a story of an extraterrestrial who discovers with surprise and then dismay the way of living Westerners in the middle of the 20th century, the author criticizes consumer society in the West.

Journal of an inverted housewife [ modifier | Modifier and code ]

• Author: Juliette Raabe.
• Publication : Fiction , n°120, November 1963 .
• Note: The news is fantastic genre and not science fiction.
• Situation in anthology: p. 202 to 213.
• Summary: In this news a priori confusing, written in the form of a diary, a woman, whose first name is known or age, lives her life upside down. The news begins on Saturday January 28 at 11:57 a.m., then regressed over time, time per hour, until Wednesday January 25 , even though the heroine of the news experiences her existence in a linear way. For example, redness appears on her hand, then grows, then becomes a blister, before we discover that she burned at the stove, then her hand resumes a normal appearance before the burn. Another example: it puts clean linen in the washing machine and the dirty spring. Last example: when she toilet in the shower, dirty water comes out of the water drain neck and goes up along her body. When by a stroke of fate on Wednesday January 25 Around 8:34 p.m. – 8:35 p.m., the weather starts to take a normal chronological course, it is completely confused and says that “Everything is so absurd at once” (Last sentence of the news).

Suicide [ modifier | Modifier and code ]

Mission in Versailles [ modifier | Modifier and code ]

• Author: Marcel Battin.
• Publication : Fiction , n ^O sixty one, December 1958 .
• Situation in anthology: p. 223 to 229.
• Note: This seven -page news is the shortest in the collection.
• Summary: In this uchronia supposed to take place in a dystopian year 1997, the reader follows the administrative report written by Paul Carlier concerning an epidemic emerged in the “Iroquois camp of Versailles”. The reader will nevertheless ignore what epidemic it is and why there are American Indians in France. We can also be unarmed by the education that we must not “speak to adults”, except that it is a civilization in which it is children and adolescents who command adults.

Bubbles [ modifier | Modifier and code ]

• Author: Gilles Thomas (Pseudonym of Julia Verlanger).
• Situation in anthology: p. 230 to 252.
• Intrigue: On a post-apocalyptic land, unused humans have protected. Those who could not be protected have been contaminated, and have become “the others”, kinds of repulsive zombies …

Tangle [ modifier | Modifier and code ]

• Author: André Ruellan.
• Publication : Special fiction n ° 4: anthology of French science fiction , 1963.
• Situation in anthology: p. 253 to 263.
• Summary: A man, whose name we will not know, is apparently suffering from psychosis: he acts in a very bizarre way; He hears a voice that gives him orders or advice. Placed in a psychiatric hospital and left by his wife Laura, the man hears that the voice explains to him that he is at the “tangency point” between the human world, in the universe we know, and another universe populated by creatures who will come to our universe to live there and colonize it. Is this voice the fruit of its psychosis, or on the contrary the announcement of a future human war against extraterrestrials very sure of themselves?

First empire [ modifier | Modifier and code ]

• Author: Francis Carsac.
• Publication : Fiction , n°74, January 1960 .
• Situation in anthology: p. 264 to 278.
• Intrigue: in a very distant future, historians have uncovered “archives” formerly written by the ancients and dating from the end of the second millennium and the beginning of the third millennium, reporting the space conquests made by humanity. According to the historical documents found, humanity has conquered the stars thanks to the “travel in hyperespace” and, after various wars against extraterrestrial species, managed to create a large spatial empire. Historians and scientists try to discover the great secrets of the ancients, and in particular the most important of all: that of the travel in hyperespace.

Nocturnal for demons [ modifier | Modifier and code ]

• Author: Michel Deuth.
• Publication : Fiction , n°125, April 1964 .
• Situation in anthology: p. 279 to 309.
• Summary: Benjad Arglider is loaded by Man in red , representative of the Night League, to kill a demon, a creature used for the omnipotent to maintain his power on his subjects. After an initiatory quest strewn with pitfalls, Benjad Arglider will discover with amazement that he was himself a demon, without even knowing it, and that Man in red was the omnipotent himself …

The grand future [ modifier | Modifier and code ]

• Author: Jean Porte ^{[ first ]} .
• Publication : Satellite , n°4, April 1958 .
• Note: New humor.
• Situation in anthology: p. 310 to 317.
• Summary: The narrator evokes in an alert and humorous tone the UN project to send scientists in the future in order to know the development of sciences in the future. Scientists, once returned to XX ^{It is} century, will thus allow a new development of knowledge. After endless sterile palaver in the UN, where each state tries to make its point of view prevail and where, in fact, no agreement can be found, the French decide to develop their own temporal program. After 15 years of work, the project finally leads, and we send scientists (including the narrator) twenty centuries in the future. Temporal travelers disembark in a world that has not changed extraordinarily, even if difficulties arise due to the evolution of the language. A translator, who speaks a pictorial and popular French, receives them. Temporal travelers, who fit the state of various sciences, learn that no evolution took place in twenty centuries, insofar as the most brilliant minds of XX ^{It is} century and subsequent centuries have all left in the future to know the evolution of science. And in reality, it is the inhabitants of the fortieth century who ask them (to them!) To transmit vital scientific knowledge to them for their development, some of which in the fortieth century have been forgotten for a long time!
• Publications ^{[ 2 ]} :
  • Satellite , Les Cahiers de la science fiction n ° 4, 1958.
  • The grand future , ed. Seghers, Constellations, 1975.
  • The frank worlds , Le Book de Poche n ° 7096, 1988.
  • The masters of science fiction – Time travel stories , Le Livre de Poche, n ° 7198, 1997.

In the blind pilot [ modifier | Modifier and code ]

• Authors: Nathalie and Charles Henneberg.
• Publication : The grand future , anthology (distinct from the news of Jean Porte Cité supra), September 1975 .
• Situation in anthology: p. 318 to 340.
• Summary: A space officer who has an urgent need of money deposits at North, a blind usurier, a strange animal brought back from a distant planet. Later, the space officer having been found dead, North therefore retains the animal. The latter turns out to be an “alpha hydre siren”. A struggle will engage between the blind and the strange extraterrestrial animal. The latter manages to kill North, but will in turn be killed when the space police will intervene in the building.

Those of Argos [ modifier | Modifier and code ]

• Authors: Martine Thomé ^{[ 3 ]} and Pierre Versins.
• Publication : Fiction , n°62, January 1959 .
• Situation in anthology: p. 341 to 362.
• Summary: The narrator is a scientist who, during space expeditions, is responsible with his colleagues to get in touch with extraterrestrial species discovered by previous expeditions. And precisely, the members of the ship must approach the planet Argos. They get to know the Argiens, and the narrator falls in love with a young and beautiful Argian named Vrâ. After a few months, he will discover the terrible curse attached to this extraterrestrial species: each winter, the Argians decperiate, withered, before dying, then to be reborn the following year in another form. This is how Vrâ goes, in a few days, to become old and then die, to the great despair of the narrator.

The planet with seven masks [ modifier | Modifier and code ]

• Author: Gérard Klein.
• Publication : 24 exciting stories of anticipation , anthology, June 1960 .
• Note: new dreamlike and mysterious.
• Situation in anthology: p. 363 to 381.
• Summary: Stello has just arrived on a planet. He leaves his spacecraft and goes to the nearest town. He discovers that the inhabitants all wear masks, of different colors: purple masks, gold, emerald, mother -of -pearl, etc. Should he also wear a mask? What color, what shape? What is the deep meaning of carrying masks in this strange planet? He will meet an native who will help him find himself.

Like an injured bird [ modifier | Modifier and code ]

• Author: Gilbert Michel.
• Note: New sarcastic.
• Situation in anthology: p. 382 to 397.
• Intrigue: The news evokes suicide considered one of the fine arts. But when everyone practices suicide, what to do to stand out from the neighbor?

• Dictionary of authors + biographies: pages 399 to 411.
• Table of contents: pages 413-414.