SF and fantasy set in Belgium

[nwhyte]

Some of you will have seen my list of sf and fantasy novels set in Ireland. I have been living in Belgium now for over seven years, and it occurred to me that there must be a similar list possible of sf and fantasy set here.

I have two items to start off with:

Cloud Atlas, by David Mitchell (2004): one of the nested stories is set in Zedelghem.

Comments

[sammywol]

Did the incredibly long Ash by Mary Gentle make it as far North as Belgium or just Burgundy? Will give it some thought. I have a nagging at my mind that I am forgetting one that I really liked.

[nwhyte]

Hmm, will have to check that one. As far as I remember, though, she starts off in the Rhine Valley to the east of Belgium/the Netherlands, and then heads south into Burgundy, and Marseilles, and Carthage of course, without coming as far west as here.

[sammywol]

got it! either Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell takes a gander at the Battle of Waterloo or else I have a vivid imagination that writes fanfic to itself on the sly (although that could happen - it did when I was a kid with Lord of the Rings).

There must be a host of time travel and alternate history stories involving Waterloo. There is also one small reference to it in David Brin's Earth that I always liked where there's an online discussion of the re-enactment of the battle being flooded with far more soldiers wanting to re-enact it than were there for the original and so the costume police are out to turn away the less 'authentic' candidates.

[nwhyte]

D'Oh! You're dead right. Have edited main entry for Strange and Norrell.

Will have to think about Brin.

[habseligkeit]

I think Ash counts as Belgian sf. Burgundy at the time covered Belgium and the Netherlands and the book keeps the duchy "alive" before the Habsburg takeover.
Caught you on EbS today!

[nwhyte]

Yeah, liberaliser just told me - but I'm really puzzled - was this my presentation ot the Committee of the Regions on Tuesday? What sort of time was it on?

[habseligkeit]

It was a headshot of you next to a window followed by a Slavic voiceover. It was part of the Exchanges South Eastern Europe package that EbS does in its "news for free" programme. That has already caused trouble with the journalists' unions who claim it is taking work away from honest hard-working hacks (who do exist apparently.)
Video download here: http://europa.eu.int/comm/avservices/ebs/schedule.cfm?date=05/03/2006

[nwhyte]

Aha. That must have been the quick interview the Balkan journalists did with me on 30 March!