"Donald A. Wollheim - European Science Fiction" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wollheim Donald A)

countries. Yet there has been a rise in the quantity of original work appearing; slowly and steadily the
names of new writers are appearing, and these new writers are achieving some prestige in their own
countries--edging their way into the ranks of translated foreigners in their native bookshops.
The first European science fiction conventions have come and gone, prizes are being awarded that are
not the American Hugos and Nebulas, organizations are thriving, and the state of European science
fiction promises a development that is most encouraging.
In researching this book we set out to find and select good examples of what is going on today in
European science fiction. We have entitled this work "the best" but we beg the readers' indulgence here.
Only a linguist with an able grasp of a dozen languages could read and evaluate the whole mass of
European science fiction and make such a claim. This is, we will say, the best that we have been able to
cull from translations, with the aid of suggestions from friends abroad and with what slight ability we have
with languages not our own. When this book was first conceived, we planned to include all of Europe,
East and West, but there are limits to economic book publishing. Hence, we have deliberately omitted
the countries of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. In those lands, science fiction is booming--there is
a multiplicity of material but this will have to wait for a second volume, if possible. Here we must perforce
concentrate on the lands of Western Europe.
What is the state of affairs in those countries?
By far the healthiest and most vigorous science fiction literature is that of France. No less than nine
book publishers include science fiction series in their regular production schedules, and the range is
phenomenal. In fact, in many respects it outclasses and puts to shame the science fiction scene in the
United States. Yet, it remains, in most aspects, typically French. France seems to breed a type of
national coloration that still carries the heritage of the grandeur of the eighteenth century, when France
was the cultural center of the world and French the language of international diplomacy and learn-
 Introduction
xiv
ing. Or, to put it another way, the French are a world of their own--
they are hard put to acknowledge their role as part of Western
Europe.
I was first made aware of this when I attended the Heidelberg
World Science Fiction Convention in 1970, the first to be held on the
European mainland. It was a well-attended convention with writers
and readers and fans from all over Europe, from Britain, and a large
group from the United States. But French attendees were few and far
between--perhaps a half dozen, perhaps less. They avoided contact
with the others and, when questioned, they insisted that there was no
"fandom" in France. No, no, science fiction was very slight in
France, hardly worth mentioning.
Then I went to France, and in following years went again, and saw
and heard and found. No fandom, indeed! No science fiction, ha!
The country was booming!
A French fandom existed, though it did not call itself such, and yet
it supported "fan magazines" professionally printed, sold through
bookshops, and obviously thriving. It supported monthly editions of
pulp magazines reprinting in translation the best of the Anglo-Saxon
authors. It supports the most expensive and awe-inspiring editions of
science fiction and fantasy books for collectors that exist anywhere in
the world. This is the Club du Livre d'Anticipation, edited by Michel
Demuth and published by Editions OPTA. The club publishes
monthly selections of beautifully bound and finely illustrated books,
"limited" to five and six thousand copies, numbered, sold by