
As Art Evans proposes in “Good News from France,” a recent review essay of three new studies of sf from France written by French scholars, it appears that the traditionalist French academic establishment has begun to acknowledge the legitimacy of French science fiction as a national genre worthy of comment. Until very recently, in spite of Jules Verne’s frequently acknowledged paternity of the genre, even ardent historians of French sf tied its history, including its production in France, to its developments in the Anglo-American world, insisting that sf began in 1926 with Gernsback’s invention of the term (Vas-Deyres 22–23). Natacha Vas-Deyres in an extensive, rigorous study, Ces Français qui ont écrit demain: Utopie, anticipation et science-fiction au XXe siècle (The Frenchmen Who Wrote Tomorrow: Utopia, Anticipation, and Science Fiction in the Twentieth Century; 2013), begs to differ, tracing the roots of French sf back to the merveilleux scientifique (scientific marvelous) of Verne and Maurice Renard. Vas-Deyres also makes a compelling case for the significance of contemporary French writers of sf such as Serge Lehman, [Yal] Ayerdhal, Serge Brussolo, Philippe Curval, Pierre Perot, Laurent Genefort, and others. Unfortunately, very few of these writers have been translated into English; once again, the image of French sf—particularly its image in the Anglo-American sf mainstream—remains trapped in the past.