Eschbach is the same as Elsberg, just better writing, but if someone changed the sci-fi elements with horror, fantasy, or, yuck, fantastic realism, there would be no difference because the novel stays the same, average everyday literature camouflaged as sci-fi. It´s his only good work, his second, Helix is already far less compelling and I possibly won´t read his third one, Gier, because of the bad ratings.īut how does it come that there is no real European sci-fi, fantasy, and comedy market that is similar and especially competitive to the UK and US? There is no industry, no Hollywood, no great European sci-fi behemoth, no culture of progressive, good writing styles, no college bachelor and master degrees in creative writing, and a terrible book market focused on redundancy, repetitions, and boredom.Īnd, because the writers have close to no epic meta worldbuilding, no education in creative writing, and seem to strongly focus on letting characters tell the story with one rudimentary plotline in the background, it´s often like a normal novel about characters with some sci-fi elements, not a future world with characters living with the conditions of this world, fusing plot and protagonist to the full enjoyment of the US and UK sci-fi giants that let one live these lives in hundreds and thousands of years in the future. I have seen this story before, no more electricity and the consequences over different periods of time, and Elsberg mixes some plotlines and thriller elements together for an entertaining read.

One of the living German speaking, Austrian born sci-fi authors I know besides Andreas Eschbach, Andreas Brandhorst, Philipp P Peterson, and others in military sci-fi I can´t remember at the moment, who are comparable to the ingenious UK and US authors.

Blackout book marc elsberg