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If you know of any (translated, given my lack of non-English speaking capability) non-English-origin sci-fi, I'd love pointers. I realize a lot is lost in translation, but I love the viewport into other cultures that fiction can provide.

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Largely ignored in all these comments is the enormous legacy of Soviet SF. During all the years of SF's Golden Age and the decades after, the main ideological and technological competitor to the US was the Soviet Union.

We're so familiar with the tropes and concepts of US-centric SF, but imagine a whole new world of science fictional ideas - separated only by language! That's Soviet SF...

The finest series of translations was Macmillan's Best of Soviet Science Fiction in the 1980s. Some of the books are now very rare and expensive, but if you're a seeker of ideas, they're priceless (especially any stories by Genrikh Altov).

As an introduction, I particularly recommend World's Spring, edited by Vladimir Gakov. And one of the finest SF novels I've read is Self Discovery, by Vladimir Savchenko (freely available online here: http://lib.ru/RUFANT/SAWCHENKO/savchenko_selfdiscovery_ok-en...).

I have a copy of a collection of soviet stories, including two by Altov (and his wife). It's a Portuguese translation of a French translation, but it's still great (although I wonder how much was lost).

Jules Verne. I'm currently reading Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea and it is fantastic. Originally written in French.

It's his best work, though, especially of the SF genre (I like Miguel Strogoff, but there's nothing speculative about it).

Stanislaw Lem (Solaris, The Cyberiad) is amazing, and some of the English translations are so full of puns and clever turns of phrase it's hard to believe it was originally written in Polish.

I recommend The Black Mirror, an anthology of German and Austrian science fiction: http://www.amazon.com/Black-Mirror-Other-Stories-Anthology/d...

Also German, and 50 years old this year (!): the Perry Rhodan series.[0] It was being translated into English but I'm not sure if it still is. The earlier 1960s American English publications were very popular, I believe.

[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perry_Rhodan

Obvious one is Stanislaw Lem -- The Cyberiad would be my recommendation.

I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harper

The Carpet Makers by Andreas Eschbach

Both are excellent.

I can recommend the Carpet Makers. I've read it in German. The structure of that novel is quite interesting, too.

Does Jorge Luis Borges count?

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