Sense of Wonder: A Century of Science Fiction (218 page)

In early twenty-first-century Germany, the most prominent and prolific writer is Andreas Eschbach (1959– ). His science fiction-thrillers sell so well that he is able to write full-time. Eschbach’s
Dune
-inspired tale
The Carpet Makers
(Die Haarteppichknüpfer,
1995) is his best publication to date, and is a fascinating story of galactic colonialization and selective memory. Franz Schätzing (1957– ) wrote a runaway hit with his science fiction/eco-thriller
The Swarm
(Der Schwarm, 2005) in which sea creatures attack humanity for destroying ocean ecology.

Some excellent science fiction by women also exists, but it is rarely translated. For instance, Austrian feminist writer Barbara Neuwirth publishes dark fantasy stories and has been instrumental in the Viennese feminist press Wiener Frauenverlag. Her story “The Character of the Huntress” appears in Franz Rottensteiner’s anthology
The Best of Austrian Science Fiction
(2001). Austrian Marianne Gruber (1944– ) wrote the anti-utopia
The Sphere of Glass
(Die gläserne Kugel, 1981), which portrays a dark image of the modern city. Former East German writer Christa Wolf wrote “Self-Experiment” (
Selbstversuch
, 1973) in which a woman transforms herself into a man. Two former East German author pairs, Johanna and Günter Braun and Angela and Karlheinz Steinmüller also have published many high-quality novels and stories. Both are to be found in Franz Rottensteiner’s anthology The Black Mirror & Other Stories (2008).

Sweden has a small science fiction community. Its foremost author is Sam Jerry Lundwall (1941– ), who came up via fan circles and is one of Sweden’s most prolific writers, translators, and publishers. He created
Delta Förlag
in 1973, which published 200 science fiction titles through 1980, and also founded
Jules-Verne Magasinet
, Sweden’s premier science fiction magazine (Wollheim xviii). He has published several secondary works on science fiction, including
Science Fiction: An Illustrated History
(1978). He writes both in English and in Swedish and has published
Alice’s World
, (1971),
No Time for Heroes
(1971), and
King Kong Blues
(1974) among others. Another writer who emerged from fan circles is Bertil Mårtensson (1954– ). A professor of Philosophy, he has published several short stories in English and a novel entitled
Detta är verkligheten
(This is reality, 1972). Finally, the Swedish National Library has just announced that it possesses two science fiction stories by Stieg Larsson (1954–2004), the famous crime novelist.

Norwegian science fiction was most popular during the sixties and seventies. At that time, Jon Bing (1944– ) and Tor Åge Bringsværd (1939– ) brought the genre to prominence. The two often work as a team both writing, editing, and publishing. They have published numerous novels and short stories, including “A Whiter Shade of Pale” by Bing and “Codemus” by Bringsværd. Government subsidies designed to promote national culture have been invaluable to the development of the science fiction in Norway (Wollheim xviii).

Danish science fiction is almost unknown outside of Denmark. Niels E. Nielsen (1924–1993) has been termed the father of Danish science fiction and is the author of Golden Age style novels. He debuted with
Røde Taager
(Red Mist, 1950) and wrote some forty-five books, the last being
Redningsekspeditionen
(Rescue Expedition, 1994). Erwin Neutzsky-Wulff (1949– ) is a popular writer and has written
Anno Domini
(1975),
UFO
(1999), and the forthcoming
Biblen
(Bible, 2012).

The Dutch recognize their best science fiction writers with the Paul Harland prize (formerly the King Kong Award). This prize was recently renamed after Harland, the pen name of Paul Smit (1960–2003), who died suddenly. The collection
Systems of Romance
(1995) includes short stories in English by Harland and Paul Evenblij. Thijs van Ebbenhorst Tengbergen (b. 1952, pseudo. Tais Teng) has also had several stories appear in English science fiction magazines, including “Green-ache” and “What Avails a Psalm in the Cinders of Gehenna?” He recently wrote the fantasy story
The Emerald Boy
(2007).

Despite the competition from Anglo-American publications, science fiction continues to thrive in Western Europe. While often in dialogue with Anglo-American stories and authors, Western European authors gain inspiration from their own creativity, respective cultures, histories, and languages. While some authors adapt American sub-genres (e.g. cyberpunk) or even existing worlds to the European context, others write independently of these traditions. Some authors even write against what they perceive to be an “entertainment quality” of particularly American science fiction, and argue that true science fiction must be free of cliché and engage the reader in critical self-reflection (See Suvin). This very short essay is only the tip of the iceberg when examining Western European Science Fiction. This rich field of production includes many more authors than can be discussed here. Moreover, there are many other forms of science fiction besides literature that have taken hold in Europe, including comics, graphic novels, and film, each of which has its own devoted fan base. Finally, new ideas and trends from world science fiction, e.g. video games, Youtube video, Japanese animé, and manga, continue to be popular and shape European production.

As in the United States, it is usually not possible today to make a living solely writing science fiction. Therefore, authors tend to have professional careers, often in journalism, academia, or the technical fields, and write in their spare time. There are also active fan clubs in each country. These clubs range from the casual recreational interest to professional quality activities. For instance, members of the Andymon club in Berlin, Germany have been instrumental in publishing fledgling writers under their Shayol label. Many authors also come out of fandom. Due to this phenomenon and the smaller geographical and linguistic scale, there is closer connection between fans and authors in Western Europe than in the United States. For readers interested in science fiction in a particular language, such fans are easy to contact via the Internet and are often eager to share their knowledge about their country’s science fiction. Moreover, the European science fiction community has been gathering every year since 1972 at Eurocon, which is organized by the European Science Fiction Society.

Works Cited

Barreiros, João Manuel Rosado. “Synchronicity.”
Fantastic Metropolis
. October 22, 2001. Web. January 4, 2011. .

——. “The Test.”
Fantastic Metropolis
. March 10, 2002. Web. January 4, 2011. .

Bell, Andrea and Yolanda Molina-Gavilán.
Cosmos Latinos. An Anthology of Science Fiction From Latin America and Spain
. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2003.

Fischer, William B.
The Empire Strikes Out. Kurd Lasswitz, Hans Dominik, and the Development of German Science Fiction
. Bowling Green, Ohio: Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 1984.

Harland, Paul and Paul Evenblij.
Systems of Romance
. Netherlands: Babel Publications, 1995.

Innenhofer, Roland.
Deutsche Science Fiction 1870–1914
. Literatur in der Geschichte Geschichte in der Literatur 38. Wien [Vienna]; Köln [Cologne]; Weimar: Böhlau Verlag, 1996.

Jha, Alok and Adam Rutherford “Fantastic answers to universal questions.”
The Guardian
August 26, 2004. Web. January 2, 2011.

Nagl, Manfred.
Science Fiction in Deutschland
. Tübingen: Tübinger Vereinigung für Volkskunde, 1972.

Nolane, Richard D.
Terra SF. The Year’s Best European Science Fiction
. New York City: DAW, 1981.

——.
Terra SF II.
The Year’s Best European Science Fiction
. New York City: DAW, 1983.

Rottensteiner, Franz, ed.
The Best of Austrian Science Fiction
. Riverside, CA: Ariadne Press, 2001.

——.
The Black Mirror & Other Stories. An Anthology of Science Fiction From Germany & Austria
. Trans Mike Mitchell. Middleton, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2008.

——.
View from Another Shore
. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1999.

Silva, Luís Filipe. “Still Memories.”
Fantastic Metropolis
. January 15, 2002. Web. January 4, 2011. .

Suvin, Darko.
Metamorphoses of Science Fiction. On the Poetics and History of a Literary Genre
. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1979.

Wolf, Christa. “Self-Experiment.”
What Remains and Other Stories
. New York : Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1993.

Wollheim, Donald A. ed.
The Best from the Rest of the World: European Science Fiction
. Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Co, Inc. 1976.

* * * *

Sonja Fritzsche
is Co-Chair of the Department of Modern and Classical Languages and Literatures and an Associate Professor of German and Eastern European Studies. She received her Ph.D. in Germanic Studies from the University of Minnesota, her M.A. in Modern European History from UCLA, and her B.A. in History and German from Indiana University. Her book, entitled
Science Fiction Literature in East Germany
appeared in 2006 with Peter Lang. She has also had articles appear in the
German Studies Review
, the
German Quarterly
, the
Women in German Yearbook
,
Film & History
,
Utopian Studies
, and
Extrapolation
on the topics of science fiction film, fandom, East German ostalgia, Ursula Le Guin, Nature and
Heimat
in GDR cinema, and the German-Jewish writer Esther Dischereit. Besides courses in language, literature, and culture in German at all levels, she teaches courses in English on “German Postwar Film,” “From Utopia to Science Fiction: Imagining the Future in Russia and Germany,” and a freshman seminar on comparative German and American ecotopian literature.

(1917–2008)

What Arthur C. Clarke accomplished over nearly sixty years as a writer, inventor and science enthusiast is staggering, even before you consider that he was paralyzed for the last four decades of that career. One of the “big three” of SF along with Robert A. Heinlein and Isaac Asimov, the three were friends but at times played up a pretended rivalry. He’ll probably always be most associated with the invention of the communications satellite in geosynchronous orbit (now called the “Clarke orbit), which he did twenty-five years before the technology existed to make it work; and for
2001: a space odyssey
, his collaboration with filmmaker Stanley Kubrick that originated in the story below. He also suggested Clarke’s Laws:

When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right; when he states that something is impossible, he is probably wrong.

The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

As a writer, Clarke’s focus was less on style and character than on setting up a problem for the reader—often leaving a haunting dilemma or a puzzle to chew on rather than suggesting a solution in the way Asimov usually did, for example.

Over the course of his career, Clarke won virtually every award in the field, and was granted a knighthood. He also established the Arthur C. Clarke Award, given to the best book published in the U.K. every year.

After 1956, Clarke largely relocated from Britain to Sri Lanka. He died of complications from the same polio that left him paralyzed in 1962.