It may be interesting to add to the scope Bulgaria, a small country in comparison with the ones listed above, with a population of about seven and a half million. I was surprised to hear that about forty books published in 2009 fall into the speculative fiction category. The typical print runs for national writers are 500-1000 copies, the famous foreign SF&F names sell a few times more. The limited market effectively precludes making living from writing alone, so even the most successful mainstream writers have a day job.

The Sturgeon's law tells us that we cannot expect more than a few good books among the 2009 crop, and I haven't read all forty or so titles, but here are a few that drew my attention.


- "ФантАstika 2008" (Fantastika 2008), annual almanac, appeared in 2009, publisher Foundation Human Library. The title is an intentional mix of Cyrillic and Latin letters, forming the Bulgarian generic term for speculative fiction. This volume contains an extended profile of the Bulgarian SF writer Grigor Gatchev, and stories by L.P. Nikolov, A. Karapanchev, M. Petkov, V. Todorov and translations by S. Lukjanenko, N. Gaiman, Vl. Rybakov, and T. Sturgeon. The almanac contains a lot of reviews and articles on history and theory of SF&F. The Bulgarian part of the book is available online under Creative Commons License at: http://fs.choveshkata.net/index.php/%D0%A4%D0%B0%D0%BD%D1%82%D0%90stika_2008 The translated part is not, due to copyright limitations.

- "Упражнения по безсмъртно писане" (Exercises in Immortal Writing), a collection by Yancho Cholakov. It contains reprints and new writings. The main piece is a short novel "Историята на Самотният редник" (The History of the Lonely Private) is a retelling of the Troy battle, in a world of sapient arthropods. It is a dark but engaging story. The author is known for his literary experiments, and has the reputation of the best stylist among the Bulgarian SF&F writers. He has a degree in Literature from the Sofia University, which also makes a difference.

- "Слънце недосегаемо" (Sun Intangible) by Nikolay Tellalov, this is the fourth book by an unique hard SF - Fantasy cross over series, the first Bulgarian speculative fiction epics. The volumes alternate genres between Fantasy, Space opera, and Alternate history. The main premise of the series is that dragons exist, much as they were described in the Bulgarian mythology, and they impact the reality in some rather unexpected ways, i.e. enabling a more harmonious society and an advanced space travel. The novels are set apart from the majority of the Bulgarian (and World) SF&F by the positive outlook to the future.


This short summary is incomplete, surely there are other books worthy of mentioning but I will restrain myself to the ones I have read.

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http://www.locusmag.com/Reviews/2010/03/overview-of-international-science.html