In October 2010, Hinterland was released, an anthology of 20 science fiction stories inspired by songs by David Bowie, edited by Karla Schmidt (who, as opposed to Michael Schmidt, actually is a relative of mine). It features short fiction by well-known German writers like Dietmar Dath, Dirk C. Fleck, Siegfried Langer, Markolf Hoffmann and Karsten Kruschel and also by lesser known, but no less impressive authors like Nadine Boos, Jasper Nicolaisen and the editor Karla Schmidt herself.
And, of course, by me. The featured story "The Aggrieved Ray Gun" has been inspired by Bowie's song "Running Gun Blues" from the early album "The Man Who Sold the World". It's a pulp story about Zarkova, a villainous (or possibly heroic) revolutionary, narrated from the perspective of an intelligent and rather squeamish ray gun that she has stolen from Eko Galaxy, Champion of Justice. It's also a story about forbidden love between an AI with a highly sophisticated conscience, a women who thinks that the ends justify the means and a man who believes in other ends, which justify different means.
Of course, the whole book is in German, but on the official website, the publishers will release excerpts in English translation. The first one, from Markolf Hoffmann's extraordinary art-crime-story "Tryptichon", is already online. Also, I'm told that all of the stories have been translated by now and the book might actually be published in English some time next year.
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