Inspired by a science fiction novel — the 1903 proto-Steampunk utopia Old New Land by Theodor Herzl – the State of Israel is the quintessential science fiction nation. Enter, Zion’s Fiction: An Anthology of Israeli Fantasy & Science Fiction, the first of an authoritative three-volume English language collection of Israeli speculative fiction. The first volume will consist of a definitive collection of the finest Israeli speculative fiction written since 1978, the start of the golden age of Israeli SF. If funds suffice, we intend to add a second volume showcasing material published since 1948, when hard-won independence gave rise to literary musings over alternate futures, presents and pasts. A third volume will feature material, much of it imagining different utopian versions of Jewish statehood, published from the mid-19th Century on. Herzl, the Austrian journalist (and, not coincidentally, the bearded gentleman featured on our cover — check out the iconic photo that inspired it on our Endorsements page!) once famously declared: “If you will it, it is no dream.”
Herzl’s dream was to create a modern Jewish state in the historical homeland of the Jewish people. Ours is to forge out a literary refuge for the kind of unbridled literary fancy his aspirants, tasked with transforming his science-fictional vision into a hardscrabble reality, could not bring themselves to accomplish. Yours, we hope, will be to help us pry open a long-shuttered window into the dreams and nightmares of a nation quite unlike any other.
