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Bartholomewcm
gatherer
Username: Bartholomewcm
Post Number: 95
Registered: 9-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, October 29, 2003 - 11:18 pm: |     |
Earth received two Martian invasions in the year that H.G. Wells brought out War of the Worlds. The second came from German writer Lasswitz with Auf Zwei Planeten in which (shades of Pangborn's A Mirror for Observers and Stuart's "Who Goes There?" a team of explorers finds a flying saucer in Antarctica, the vanguard of an initially peaceful contact mission from the Red Planet, which is people by very attractive and, as things turn out, nubile humanoids. (And, unlike Burroughs' denizens, fully viviparous.) In a marvelous scene in the first chapter, they meet the Martians, who offer them food that they put on what they think are platters and turn out to be hair combs. There's a look at life on Mars (far from the first, had been done as early as 1880) before relations sour, followed by a very literal uniting of worlds.
Lasswitz had to have written other things, none of which apparently have been translated. Anybody got titles? The next German novel in my collection is from 1925. Two Planets didn't make it here until the 1970's, which means that Wells' much grimmer view of interplanetary war (the end-product of a 25-year future-war trend that began with "The Battle of Dorking" in which Germany invaded England, written during the Franco-Prussian War) set the pattern for all the gory fights with slavering Bug-Eyed Monsters that readily jumped to America, where it got even worse. |
Annie
storyteller
Username: Annie
Post Number: 278
Registered: 5-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, October 29, 2003 - 11:33 pm: | |
Mike, are you determined to come up with authors we've never heard of?  Or maybe I should just speak for myself... |
(Unregistered Guest)
visitor
| | Posted on Thursday, October 30, 2003 - 2:04 am: | |
Well, take your pick from the following: Garrett P. Serviss, George Allan England, Edward Paige Mitchell, Edward Everett Hale, Fitz-James O'Brien, Frank R. Stockton, George Chesney, M. P. Shiel, Richard Adams Locke, Francis Stevens, Luis P. Senarens, George Griffith, Harriet Prescott Spofford, Grant Allen. (None of those are pseudonyms for Henry Kuttner or Jack Vance.) |
Bartholomewcm
gatherer
Username: Bartholomewcm
Post Number: 97
Registered: 9-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, October 30, 2003 - 2:08 am: | |
Arrgh! You know who. |
swan (Unregistered Guest)
visitor
| | Posted on Thursday, October 30, 2003 - 9:33 am: | |
I read "Homchen - Ein Tiermärchen aus der oberen Kreide" by Kurd Lasswitz years and years ago... 
Here's a link to a German page about this author, where you also can find more information about the book. |
Bartholomewcm
gatherer
Username: Bartholomewcm
Post Number: 100
Registered: 9-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, October 30, 2003 - 4:57 pm: | |
Why am I not surprised the Nazis banned him too? Can't believe that's the only book by him in translation from a country that produced the Grimms.
Had forgotten about the Clute/Nichols sf encyclopedia, can't figure out why I didn't grab it at the time. Uh-oh, yes I can...am blocking 1979 out at least until I get through grief therapy (see my quicktopic journal).
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Darsina
gatherer
Username: Darsina
Post Number: 154
Registered: 9-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, November 01, 2003 - 10:51 pm: | |
The Kurd Laßwitz Preis (Kurd Laßwitz reward) is awarded annually to the best new sf novel written in German.
Kurd Laßwitz Preis
Thinking is the work of the intellect, dreaming its pleasure. - Victor Hugo |
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Prehistorical Fiction, SF and Fantasy