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

 Introduction
xvi
an original sixty-thousand-word paperback novel once a month. He appears in a comic magazine
version. Pabel publishes in addition a regular science fiction paperback series, featuring both translations
and original novels, and a magazine-type sf twice-monthly entitled Terra Astra, doing shorter examples of
sf novels. In addition to which there are Perry Rhodan clubs, stamps, toys, spaceship blueprints, records,
and there have been films and even conventions.
Perry Rhodan, conceived and directed by two writers, Walter Ernsting ("Clark Darlton") and
Karl-Herbert Scheer, is written by a group of seven writers, who space out the tasks among them. The
style and level of the Perry Rhodan work is deliberately fast-action space opera, and the plots are rarely
original, being borrowed wholesale from all the ideas and devices of the American pulps of years gone
by. (In fact, there seems to have been and still to be an effort to make the novels seem of American
origin--the chief terrestrial characters are supposedly Americans, the language is often styled to seem an
Americanized or translated German, and one sees on some of the publications a line to the effect that the
book is now first appearing in German, a line generally used for works in translation!) Nobody claims
that the Perry Rhodan works are great science fiction and no one seems ever likely to consider any part
of it for literary awards.
The result of all this enormously successful hackwork is that Germany has produced little science
fiction worth comparing to the greats of the Anglo-Saxon and Francophonic worlds. Two outstanding
authors seem to dominate what there is of literary sf. One is the Austrian engineer Dr. Herbert Franke,
and the other is Wolfgang Jeschke. The two combine to act as editors of a series of anthologies
published by Heyne Verlag, as well as turn out original work of their own.
Yet Germany does produce a lot of science fiction in translation. Several paperback firms, Heyne,
Bastei, Goldmann, and Fischer, produce regular sf books--usually translations, but sometimes classics or
even new native writing. A few publishers have tried regular books (the equivalent of hardbound books in
America, as distinguished from mass-market paperbacks) but the efforts have not been very successful.
Insel Verlag is the principal survivor, producing a distinguished line of science fiction in beautiful
hardbound editions under the direction of Franz Rottensteiner of Vienna. And there are the inevitable
imitators and competitors of Perry Rhodan, of which Bastei's Commander Scott is the most notable. This
one began as a translation of the Cap Kennedy novels of Gregory Kern but is continuing as a
twice-monthlY with German writers filling in between the Kern offerings.
 Introduction xvii
Austria and German-speaking Switzerland are part of the German literary market and I do not know
of anything special produced there that is distinctive of the area in sf. In French-speaking Switzerland
resides Pierre Versins, whose tremendous Encyclopedie de l'Utopie et de la Science Fiction, a
thousand-page highly illustrated work, is not likely to be challenged as an informational reference work
for many years to come in any language.
In Italy the scene is still dominated by translations, with half a dozen publishers producing regular series
of books, generally in paperback, keeping up with the Western science fiction world. Mondadori's series
Urania, La Tribuna's Galassia, and the several imprints of Editrice Nord in hardbound editions are the
leaders of the bookshop science fiction group. Of special interest is the existence and continued
prosperity of the publisher Editrice Libra, whose fine hardbound editions, usually translations, are
available only by mail and whose printed fan magazine Nova is one of the best in the world for quality
and content. There are Italian science fiction writers, though they have to struggle against the high tide of
translations to make their mark. Luigi Cozzi and Ugo Malaguti, who are associated with Libra, are
among the better known of the labeled "sf" group, although the mainstream of Italian literature has
produced Italo Calvino, Buzzati, and several others. Italian fandom has established a going national
organization and has been running annual conventions, usually in Ferrara, where an equivalent of the
Hugo is presented. In Italy, as in France, there exists a split, as the Libra group declines to acknowledge
or participate in the Ferrara gatherings and instead presents its own Hugos, called thus by special