The Product by Marina Fontaine Conservatarian Press, 2022 [ #23 After the fall: A post-apocalyptic or dystopic book. ] This book kept popping up in my Kindle feed, so I chose it for the “Dystopia” category of this year’s challenge. It occurred to me when writing this review that “Russian Dystopia” is perhaps a subset, …
In looking up foreign editions of the Chronicles I came across some unique editions that were published in Russia and Ukraine. You can consider this post a companion to The Return of the White Witch: Russian Edition. The three books above, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, The Horse and His Boy, and The …
My Summers of Narnia seem to be settling around a certain theme. Last year it was The Silver Chair; this year, it’s the book that started it all, The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe. And with that theme, some more White Witches I found, not explicitly marked as The White Witch of course, but …
Three highly stylized scenes from The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, done in a style that, to my mind, imitates the Ballets Russes sketches of designer Leon Bakst. (I’ll be going more into the Russian influence on depictions of Narnia later in the Summer.) The first seems to show Lucy in the woods with …
A lovely Russian-inspired White Witch with a cruel expression.
Roadside Picnic by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky Translation by Olena Bormashenko Chicago Review Press, 2012 (Originally published 1972 in the USSR) [ Challenge # 34: A book by more than one author. ] Roadside Picnic is an SF classic. Originally published in the USSR at the height of the Cold War — and Communist censorship …
Russian-themed fantasy was the hottest thing in YA in the 2010s, of which Leigh Bardugo’s Grisha books are the best known. At least a dozen others were published following the trend, some fantasy, some contemporary, some historical. It’s hard to tell with COVID still hanging around, but the trend may not be over. Want …
Russia retained a feudal type of government until well into the 20th century (before the Russian Revolution, of course) that depended on the backbreaking labor of its serfs to fund the lavish lifestyles of its ruling elite. Not only that, the Czars were considered chosen by God himself to rule, and considered sacred, which is …
You’re stranded in Medieval Russia and can only pick one. Which is it?
I love the detail on this piece and how the story of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe has been culturally translated. The artist drew on the imagery for the movie, not the book, as the polar bears and armored centaurs attest… as is High King Peter riding on his unicorn.