Littérature secondaire
Noura Wedell (trad.), Cambridge/London, MIT Press, « Semiotext(e) / Native Agents », septembre 2005.
A cult novel in France, this sci-fi thriller is now being made into a movie by Mathieu Kassovitz. Set in the hidden "flesh and chip" breeding grounds of the first cyborg communities and people by Serbian Mafiosi, Babylon Babies has as its hero a hard-boiled leatherneck veteran of Sarajevo named Toorop who is hired by a mysterious source to escort a young woman named Marie Zorn from Russia to Canada. A garden variety job, he figures. But when Toorop is offered an even higher fee by another organization, he realizes Marie is no ordinary girl. A schizophrenic and the possible carrier of a new artificial virus, Marie is carrying a mutant embryo created by an American cult that dreams of producing a genetically modified messiah, a dream that spells out the end of human life as we know it.
Inspired by Philip K. Dick, William S. Burroughs, Gilles Deleuze, and other extrapolationists of the future, Babylon Babies unfolds at breakneck speed as Toorop risks his life to save Marie, whose brain – linking to the neuromatrix - loses all limits and becomes the universe itself. Exploring the symbiosis between organic matter and computer power to spin new forms of consciousness, Maurice Dantec rides Nietzsche's prophecy: "Man is something to be overcome."
Tina A. Kover (trad.), New York, Del Rey, 20 mai 2008.
The first major English translation of one of France's most admired writers, Cosmos Incorporated is a triumph of science fiction – a masterwork of cataclysm, mysticism, and suspense.
Fifty years of warfare, disease, and strife have decimated the world's population. Those who remain are motes in the mind of UniWorld, a superstate that monitors humanity via a vast computer metastructure that catalog everything about everyone on the planet – race, religion, genetic codes, even fantasies. Those who have the means escape UniWorld's tight control through the Orbital Ring.
Though his memory has been wiped clean and his history fabricated in order to pass through UniWorld's check points, Sergei Diego Plotkin knows his nam. And he knows his mission: to murder a man in the city of Grand Junction, a Vegas-like outpost that is home to the private launching pad to the Ring. But this sense of purpose is compromised by random memories that flash through Plotkin's brain. England and Argentina. The shores of Lake Baikal. And something else. Something indescribable.
Now Plotkin is about to meet his maker. As his identity and mission incrementally resurface in his conscious mind, and in the presence of an eerily beautiful woman, Plotkin will soon discover that he has come here not just to kill but to be born...
Noura Wedell (trad.), New York, Del Rey, 29 juillet 2008.
“What makes the novel so haunting is its vision of a near future in which society has fractured along every possible, tribal and sectarian fault line.”
–The New York Times Book Review
In the hidden "flesh and chip" breading grounds of the first cyborg communities, Toorop, a hard-boiled Special Forces veteran of Sarajevo, is hired by a shadow organization to escort a young woman, Marie Zorn, from Russia to Canada. But what appears to be a routine job is anything but. After completing the mission, Toorop discovers that Marie is no ordinary girl. A genetically altered pawn in an elaborate plot, Marie is carrying a dark secret that could spell destruction for all humankind – if Toorop doesn't track her down before it's too late.
“A vast encyclopedia of the future as seen through a crystal ball with cracks in the glass.”
–The Sydney Morning Herald
“Intense.”
–Publishers Weekly
Estate del 2013. Il mondo è sull'orlo del caos. I conflitti locali si stanno moltiplicando, la Cina è dilaniata dalla guerra civile, le alterazioni del clima minacciano l'ecologia del pianeta, il potere legale è ormai gestito dai clan mafiosi con l'aiuto decisivo di strabilianti tecnologie informatiche. Da questo scenario "babelico" emerge la figura di Hugo Cornélius Toorop, il mercenario idealista già al centro de La Sirena rossa, il primo romanzo di Maurice G. Dantec. Scampato al conflitto cinese, Toorop viene arruolato dalla mafia siberiana per scortare dalla Russia al Canada Marie Zorn, una giovane donna depositarla di un incredibile segreto, una sconvolgente scoperta in grado di cambiare per sempre i destini dell'umanità. E questo è solo l'inizio di una vertiginosa epopea, a cavallo tra spy story, giallo e fantascienza.
L. Bernardi, L. Babina et G. Morelli (trad.), Bresso, Hobby & Work Publishing, « Valis », septembre 2008.
Juremir Machado da Silva (trad.), Porto Alegre, Meridional/Sulina, 1er janvier 2009.
Este livro, Raízes do mal, é o último grande romance policial de ficção científica do final do final do século XX e o primeiro da era das redes informáticas. Um prenúncio deste século XXI. Raras vezes um escritor atingiu um tal patamar de fluência e de suspense mesclando crime — uma história de serial killer —, investigação policial e científica, desejo, paixão e filosofia. O leitor mergulha num mundo terrível, mas não quer nem pode sair. Precisa e deseja ir até o fim.
Maurice Dantec consegue articular elementos antagônicos e complementares: uma grande história, um estilo que, às vezes, roça o lirismo e a percepção justa do novo e do velho - a podridão humana e a ciência, a violência e a tecnologia, o romance policial e a ficção científica. Raízes do mal prova que se pode fazer grande literatura com ideias, teorias e reflexões sem defender teses nem cair em digressões inúteis.
O mundo contemporâneo inteiro parece sugado para dentro das páginas trepidantes e cobertas de sangue de Maurice Dantec. Mas nada é gratuito ou sensacionalista. O escritor domina a narrativa com uma força descomunal, amarando fios complexos e díspares num jogo mortal, mortífero e altamente sofisticado, mas sempre legível, envolvente, frenético e sedutor. O leitor desce à cena do crime e, se vacilar, entra na pele e na mente dos criminosos, confundindo-se com eles e com os seus motivos. Dantec desperta o chacal que vive em nós. Literatura na veia. Antes de tudo, um grande história.
Roman-cult in Franta, Babylon Babies (1999) este o dare de seams supra unui secol XXI dezorientat, haotic, in pragul apocalipsei. Actiunea are loc in 2013, iar mercenarul filozof Toorop, care tocmai si-a pierdut slujba, primeste din partea lui Romanenko, un colonel rus cu multiple legaturi cu mafia, o sarcina care il deceptioneaza la inceput, dar care se dovedeste extrem de primejdioasa: sa insoteasca pina in Canada o tinara pe nume Marie Zorn. Lucrurile se complica atunci cind Marie da semne ca sufera de schizofrenie, iar Toorop realizeaza ca fata nu este o fiinta obisnuita, ci purtatoarea unui nou virus artificial si gazda unui embrion mutant, creat de o secta americana al carei tel e conceperea unui nou Mesia si dezvoltarea unei populatii modificate genetic. Explorind simbioza om-masina si limitele constiintei, brodind pe marginea profetiilor lui Nietzsche despre depasirea conditiei umane, Babylon Babies este o carte uimitoare si captivanta, care ii asigura lui Dantec un loc in rindul vizionarilor moderni.
Roman ecranizat in 2008 in regia lui Mathieu Kassovitz, avindu-i in distributie pe Vin Diesel, Melanie Thierry si Gerard Depardieu.
Rita Chirian (trad.), Jassy, Polirom, 20 avril 2009.
Atsushi Hiraoka (trad.), Tokyo, Ohta Publishing Company, mai 2009.
Bandeau
Tina A. Kover (trad.), New York, Del Rey, 29 septembre 2009.
Visionary, gripping, sumptuous and tantalizing, Grand Junction is a masterwork of hip, literary science fiction.
On October 4, 2057, most electronic devices on Earth are infected and destroyed by unknown viruses, and billions of people dependent on machine interfaces are killed as a result. Twelve years later, the survivors are sunk in a new Dark Age, a grim afterworld in which the only law is the law of the jungle.
In the sprawling ruins of Grand Junction, a thriving urban community centered on an abandoned spaceport, civilization is hanging on by its fingernails. In this last fragile outpost of knowledge and reason, hope and faith, a second wave of lethal viruses is unleashed – viruses that attack human beings directly, stripping away language, thought, humanity itself.
But it is also here that a young boy, a guitar-playing prodigy named Link de Nova, discovers within himself the power to fight a malevolent entity determined to remake the world in its own bleak image. Now, as the viruses spread and enemies converge on Grand Junction, Link and his friends and protectors, Chrysler Campbell and Yuri McCoy, prepare to fight for the survival of the human race with rifles, radios, and rock 'n' roll.
По шоссе, уходящему на юг, под звуки саксофона-камикадзе мчится пара, пораженная нейровирусом, который подключил их мозг к космической станции «Мир» и ее ангелу-хранителю — джазмену Альберту Эйлеру. Так начинается путешествие по ту сторону реальности и бесконечности. Философский боевик, научно-фантастический техно-экшн в жанре киберпанк от Мориса Дантека, автора, которого называют «человеком № 1 в научной фантастике XXI века».
Anton Vladimirovich Dadikin (trad.), Moscou, Ripol Classic, 2011.
Сибирский мафиози - коллекционер ракет. Коррумпированный офицер ГРУ - почитатель Сунь Цзы. Страдающая частичной амнезией девушка-шизофреник, которая контрабандой перевозит новое биологическое оружие. Ученые, ставшие учениками колдунов и готовые преступить закон. Горстка солдат, затерянных на краю мира, где они сражаются за заведомо безнадежное дело. Пост-милленаристские секты, штурмующие цитадели сокровенного Знания. Банды байкеров, ведущие беспощадные войны с применением переносных ракетных установок. Юные технопанки, кропотливо подготавливающие апокалипсис. Полупомешанный писатель-фантаст, утверждающий, что получает послания из будущего. Не бойтесь.
Anton Vladimirovich Dadikin (trad.), Moscou, Ripol Classic, 2012.
Философский боевик, научно-фантастический техно-экшн в жанре киберпанк от Мориса Ж.Дантека, автора, которого называют "человеком №1 в научной фантастике ХХI века". Для настоящих ценителей интеллектуальной прозы. Две американские башни взорвались. Странный фиолетовый чемоданчик в руках какого-то человека. Безжалостный убийца, утверждающий, что он родственник дьявола, рекламирует всему миру собственные преступления… Вы подниметесь по ступеням Мирового торгового центра, в то время как вокруг все будет рушиться; вы заглянете внутрь фиолетового чемоданчика, чтобы узнать свое будущее. Дьявол проникнет в ваше тело… Вы еще многого не знаете о себе.
Ksenia Vladimirovna Levina (trad.), Moscou, Ripol Classic, 2015.