Couple of thrones in León

Reality surpasses fiction. And to science. It could be a motto. But his thing is all that, and love. In the play on words in the title is the first trap. Because they come to León, to the delicious Asimov bookstore, opened just over four months ago as a small local cultural joy, because Ian Watson (St Albans, United Kingdom, 1943) presents a book and León will be one of the places to promote The monster, the mermaid and Dr. Mengele. The other part of the story is his wife: Cristina Macía. from Madrid in 1965, which is the author of the translations of nothing more and nothing less than Game of Thrones, the legendary saga by George RR Martin, and which she has experienced as a live success, and, why not, she has her share of pleasant blame for what has been and is a boom in contemporary cultural entertainment. She will be in León and politely warns: “I think the important thing is that Ian presents a book,” she says and she is understood. But it turns out that the hook works perfectly. Later it is known that this couple, husband and wife, live in Gijón. And closeness serves to take the shortest path to the understanding that talent knows no borders and this time it has united Watson’s with Macía. The third essential element in this story is the Asimov bookstore and its manager, a daring Leonese named Enrique García Ramos who bets everything here on books, comics and more and on small businesses in León. On Friday, at 7:30 p.m., the presentation of The monster, the mermaid and Dr. Mengelewith the presence of its author: Ian Watson, accompanied by the author, translator and expert in the publishing world, Cristina Macía.

The monster, the mermaid and Dr. Mengele It is pure fantastic and mythical literary magnet and an invitation to overimagine what Mary Shelley had already projected in Frankenstein .

There was no room before to say that the British participated in the scripts of Artificial intelligence, the premonitory Steven Spielberg film that Stanley Kubrick had started. And overwhelming is the approach of The monster, the mermaid and Dr. Mengele, where the novel leads Frankenstein’s monster to fulfill his desire to have his right to love. In short, a book for any reader and especially for those who savor the creative freedom in great stories that is only found in authors of Watson’s level and experience.

Regarding Cristina Macía, it is curious to hear her normalize that her work would have been done by anyone else. But witnessing how a literary giant is created in these bad times for books has been a life experience, although she also combines it with her creative side.

What would have happened if Viktor Frankenstein had kept the promise he made to the monster to create a bride for him, so that they could live happily hidden in the jungles of South America? What if the raw materials available meant that this bride had to be a mermaid? It will be universal fiction made in Gijón.