Nova Hellas: Stories From Future Greece
Edited by Francesca T. Barbini & Francesco Verso
Luna Press Publishing — March 2021
ISBN: 9781913387389 — Paperback — 152 pp.

CONTENTS:

Introduction by Dimitra Nikolaidou

“Roseweed” by Vasso Christou (Translated by Dimitra Nikolaidou & Vaya Pseftaki)

“Social Engineering” by Kostas Charitos (Translated by Dimitra Nikolaidou & Vaya Pseftaki)

“The Human(c)ity of Athens” by Ionna Bourazopoulou (Translated by Dimitra Nikolaidou & Vaya Pseftaki)

“Baghdad Square” by Michalis Monolios (Translated by Dimitra Nikolaidou & Vaya Pseftaki)

“The Bee Problem” by Yiannis Papadopoulos & Stamatis Stamatopoulos (Translated by Dimitra Nikolaidou & Vaya Pseftaki)

“T2” by Kelly Theodorakopoulou (Translated by Dimitra Nikolaidou & Vaya Pseftaki)

“Those We Serve” by Eugenia Triantafyllou

“Abacos” by Lina Theodorou (Translated by Dimitra Nikolaidou & Vaya Pseftaki)

“Any Old Disease” by Dimitra Nikolaidou

“Android Whores Can’t Cry” by Natalia Theodoridou

“The Colour that Defines Me” by Stamatis Stamatopoulos (Translated by Stephanie Polakis)

I’d originally meant to review this anthology of Greek science fiction for Speculative Fiction in Translation. However, I became delayed in writing the review and Rachel Cordasco got her own review of it posted onto her site in the meantime. I agree wholeheartedly with her general praise for Nova Hellas, but I had different personal favorites from it. Her review is definitely still worth checking out for comparison.

The collection starts strongly, with a pair of my favorites. “Roseweed” is set in a post-climate change dystopia where divers and engineers explore the lower floors of partially submerged buildings for structural integrity. They are hired as part of a plan to turn these spots into ‘escape rooms’ for rich tourists looking for the thrill of visiting abandoned locations filled with the allure of danger and risk among the decay. The story highlights one of the repeating themes of the anthology: that amid disheartening futures, people find ways to go on and live amid the changes. Even when it is still the rich that are carelessly exploiting environments and the classes beneath them, regular people find some semblance of optimism amid those challenges or frustrations.

The story that follows, “Social Engineering” likewise does a great job establishing one of the unifying features to the anthology, the merging of the Classical Greece with the Modern and the Future. This short story literally overlays the periods in an Athens that is cloaked within artificial, or ‘augmented’ realities. The protagonist of the story has been hired to influence an upcoming city referendum, and the plot delves into how engineering at the level of physical urban planning but also through directed social interaction may create more issues than solutions.

Those themes of society hidden underneath veneers or layers, and the interplay between the architectural hardware of a place (with its loaded history) and the individuals who fit into that system like cogs comes up again in different ways in “The Human(c)ity of Athens”, and then another artificial reality in “Baghdad City”. Interestingly – and I assume intentionally – that specific portmanteau of ‘humancity’ appears in a later story of the anthology as well (T2, if I recall), striking alternate tones to the same theme(s).

Like Rachel, I enjoyed the classic science fiction vibes of “Those We Serve”, with its artificial intelligences that have ‘replaced’ human counterparts, and the mystery of “Any Old Disease” that called to mind questions of what we consider biological versus not. “The Bee Problem” similarly evokes thoughts on the intersections between the biological and the artificial when the performance of drones becomes affected by a return of native bee populations.

Very short, “Abacos” had a transcript format that I didn’t really enjoy, though it is certainly well composed as that. It shares with “Android Whores Can’t Cry” an element of trying to reconstruct a past, the truth, from recording, which is interesting. I remain uncertain over that last story, probably the most challenging in the anthology, and needing a reread.

The story that closes out Nova Hellas was another of my top favorites. “The Colour That Defines You” occurs in a future world where some unexplained event has caused humans to no longer see colors. In general, people are left only seeing shades of gray from black to white… except for one specific color that is unique to each and every person. Pure happenstance leads some to discover the identity of that one color their brain can process. Others haven’t yet found it. Through the story we follow the threads of several intersecting characters and how this unique situation ends up defining their existence. What if the only color one could perceive was that of fresh, scarlet, blood? The set up for this is pure MacGuffin, but Stamatopoulos takes the literal plot, as well as its symbolisms in fascinating directions.

I can’t say as I’ve ever read science fiction – or even any fiction – from Greece before, but I’m glad to have had this opportunity to discover new authors and see their visions of common, but varied, themes in the genre. A huge amount of thanks to Luna Press Publishing for making works such as this available, and as always to my friend and partner in crime Rachel Cordasco of SF in Translation for helping to spread the word. [For legal reasons, Rachel and Daniel do no actually engage in criminal enterprise.]