Next Station: Otherland
I'm currently using public transport in Marseille, southern France, experiencing my first real culture shock. Imagine, the bus is packed but nobody insulted me yet? Nobody stepped on my foot? I didn't have an elbow/ walking stick/knife in my ribs??? Someone just SMILED ??!!! France somehow seems to handle this whole transportation thing better than oh-so-efficient Germany. The question of how to get from A to B drives humans around since they first crawled out of the primordial ooze. But our beloved SF/fantasy authors don't look back, they look to the stars and dream up all kinds of transportation. We start with Wolf's favorite spaceships: The "Millenium Falcon" from Star Wars and "The Galactica" from Battle Star Galactica.
In Corey's Expanse series, pretty physics go-getters like the "Rockhopper" scurry through space: little propulsion, but plenty of time for daring slingshot maneuvers. Caro loves "the Lexx" from the TV series of the same name. It looks like a dragonfly - or like a pretty bumped-up genitalia, har har.
I'm blushing, beam me up, Scotty! Although I've been feeling quite uneasy about beaming ever since I read Stephen King's short story "The Jaunt". I don't want to experience eternity after all. The Farcasters in Dan Simmon's "Hyperion" offer a compromise, they're like beam portals. Speaking of portals: Everyone knows "Stargate", but do you know "The Night Land" by William Hope Hodgson? Here, the protagonist is drawn into the consciousness of an inhabitant of the dying Earth.
If you suffer from claustrophobia, I would dodge space elevators. You should avoid the Luna trilogy by Ian McDonald, "Elevator to the Stars" by Arthur C. Clarke and Lavie Tidhar's "Central Station". If you’re a fighter and battle your fears heads on you can simultaneously tackle your fear of heights in "Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator" by Roald Dahl.
Technology takes us far, the DB takes us nowhere, but it would be nice to have a fully developed rail network like in China Mièville's "Railsea"...although there are quite different dangers lurking there than no coffee in the board restaurant. And if you're really tough, you should embark on the brutal journey into the heart of dystopia in “Snowpiercer". If, like me, you watched "Pirates of the Caribbean" too early and have been calling Swabians "landlubbers" ever since, you should read "The Bone Ships" by RJ Barker and "The Adventures of the Pirate Amina al-Sirafi" by Shannon Chakraborty. Ships are simply a great means of transportation, as long as you don't throw up over the railing. Finally, here are some of the strangest objects of transportation in SF and Fantasy: A giant flying peach in "James and the Giant Peach". Gliding boards in Simon Weinert's "Tassilo" (actually not so strange until you've read the book! At this point, a big recommendation for this wonderful pearl of German Weird Fiction). And if that’s too small, why not move a whole castle? In Diana Wynne Jones' "Howl’s Moving Castle", not only does a whole house wander around, but it also has portals INSIDE. And if that's not enough, you should just throw everything overboard and become part of a MOVING CITY à la Mortal Engines by Philip Reeves. That in turn makes my entire text absurd.
Have fun with the novelties in January,
Esther from the Otherland
One more thing on my own behalf:
Dear Otherlanders,
I'm looking for a small 1-2 room apartment in Berlin starting in April, where I can build myself a permanent nest. My maximum budget is 600 euros. District doesn't really matter, but preferably near the Otherland ;). If a little elf whispers something to you, send us a carrier pigeon (email)!
All the best,
Esther
