Three works of short science fiction/fantasy from France (in English translation) appeared in the pages of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction in 1962: Henri Damonti’s “The Notary and the Conspiracy,” Charles and Nathalie Henneberg’s “Moon Fishers,” and Suzanne Malaval’s “The Devil’s God-Daughter.” All three were translated by Damon Knight, who was responsible for bringing several French-language speculative pieces into English during the 1960s and 70s.
Since I already talked about Nathalie Henneberg in a previous post, let’s begin with her piece “Moon Fishers.” Written with her husband Charles, “Moon Fishers” is a sensual, lavish story, like The Green Gods. Here, the Hennebergs explore a clash between the past and aliens/alien technology. Set in the year 2500, “Moon Fishers” features a test pilot, Hugh, who is sent into ancient Egypt via a machine constructed in the Paratime Research Laboratory. As the professor in charge of the project explains before Hugh climbs in, time travel should no longer be thought of as a physical form of travel, but one that is based in the perceiver’s brain—basically, the traveler doesn’t actually go anywhere but can travel to other times, somehow. Once Hugh “arrives” in ancient Egypt, though, things go a bit off the rails: we get soul-swapping and aliens and ancient Egyptian pharaohs (like Stargate). Hugh winds up trapped in the past and the body of Pharaoh Amenophis, which was somehow predestined (?). And all this is squeezed into just 20 pages.
Next, in Damonti’s “The Notary and the Conspiracy,” notary Monsieur Duplessis joins a secret club that lets him lead a parallel life in 15th-century Florence, though the plagues and conspiracies that he encounters there turn out to be more dangerous than he had anticipated. Like “Moon Fishers,” “The Notary” asks us what we would do if we had the ability to travel back to the past and interact with/change the people and events we encounter.
However, Suzanne Malaval’s “The Devil’s God-Daughter” is an allegorical tale, unlike the first two stories discussed in this article. Here, a girl named Fanche is the youngest in a family of eight children, and she cannot find a godparent in the entire town. Noticing this problem, the devil steps in to offer his services. Though her mother protests, Fanche’s father accepts the devil’s proposal, and the girl is eventually kidnapped by the devil and dragged into hell. In order to escape, Fanche has to solve a few riddles. The devil’s wife, who is jealous of Fanche, gives her all of the answers, allowing her to go free. When Fanche escapes, she notices that it’s raining—much like for the saying that rain is the effect of the devil beating his wife.
The French SFT in the pages of F&SF in 1962 is strange and wonderfully varied, possibly helping the magazine attract readers interested in learning more about the speculative fiction being written beyond their own borders.