Dr. Martin Rundkvist is a Swedish archaeologist, journal editor, public speaker, chairman of the Swedish Skeptics Society, atheist, lefty liberal, bookworm, and father of two.
Here's something for lovers and collectors of classic science fiction. Häpna! ("Be Amazed!") was the seminal Swedish sf fiction mag, published from 1954 to 1966, with many translations of the US Golden Age greats but also much work by Swedish writers. Now the Alvar Appeltofft Memorial Foundation is offering nearly the entire backlog of the mag very cheaply, and they have a healthy number of copies of each issue, all in pristine condition. Dear Reader -- even if you don't understand one word of Scandy, can you honestly say that your living-room table is complete without a fresh copy of a Swedish 50s sf mag with a laser-gun toting babe on the cover?
Humanities & Social Science
Comments
can you honestly say that your living-room table is complete without a fresh copy of a Swedish 50s sf mag with a laser-gun toting babe on the cover?
I knew my living room table was missing something! A pretty girl with a laser gun looks like it will be the perfect fit!
Dave Briggs :~)
Posted by: Dave Briggs | January 2, 2008 11:46 AM
I wonder whether H�pna is a sister publication to Amazing or Astounding. (Oh, wait -- looking at the web page, it looks like it's related to Amazing.) In which case they might be re-using some of the cover art. Is there any information on H�pna's cover artists and illustrators?
BTW: One of the great frustrations of growing up American is that cultural flow is unidirectional. With very few exceptions (Stanislaw Lem; Jules Verne), genre fiction from outside the U.S. and U.K. is only rarely available in translation here. When I was a youngster reading Analog, Astounding, Galaxy, etc., I would have been furious had I known that there were writers with names like D�nis Lindbohm or Bertil M�rtensson, and I was being denied access to their stories because no translations were available. The situation is gradually improving (mostly due, I think, to the Internet making younger Americans aware of what's out there and creating a demand), but it's still a hopelessly parochial culture. I had to stop reading Koji Suzuki's Dark Water anthology, for example, because the translation was so inept and condescending.
Posted by: HP | January 2, 2008 3:51 PM
Aaargh! Grrrr! Seed's webmaster still hasn't fixed the character encoding issues in comments!
Posted by: HP | January 2, 2008 3:54 PM
Hapna! was published independently in Sweden, but the editor very likely had some kind of agreement with Amazing. I'll ask somebody who knows more than I do to answer.
Posted by: Martin R | January 2, 2008 3:55 PM
I am no expert on the subject, but I am fairly sure they were not sister publications of any sort. I expect the owners of Häpna bought the cover illos where they could and had to pay the market price. This is evident from the heavy re-use of cover illustrations the failing last three years, where they evidently felt they could re-use an illustration hey had already paid the liecense fee for, to save money. Unfortunately, the colophon pages do not give the name of the cover artists. A pity.
Posted by: Johan Anglemark | January 2, 2008 6:03 PM
But did the first issue come out in or on Mars?
Posted by: acb | January 3, 2008 3:50 AM
Actually, it was printed on Ganymede, but they put "Mars" on the cover because of Ganymean censorship legislation.
Posted by: Martin R | January 3, 2008 3:54 AM
I notice I spell like a dyslexic gnu.
Posted by: Johan Anglemark | January 3, 2008 4:50 PM
I have always looked upon you as a wildebeest, Johan.
Posted by: Martin R | January 3, 2008 4:54 PM
That woman has the weirdest breasts ever. Even if it is SF.
Posted by: sharon | January 3, 2008 5:08 PM
Actually, come to think of it, there's something bizarre about her entire body. Weird angles.
Posted by: sharon | January 3, 2008 5:11 PM
Her entire body looks like it's the work of a sculptor on acid, who has then proceeded to glue a head from somewhere else onto his creation. Cosmic!
Posted by: Martin R | January 3, 2008 5:12 PM
The lady with the gun is a foreign adaption of the cover of the January 1958 Science Fiction Adventures (digest-size, US) attributed to John Shoenherr. There was no relationship between any of the Ziff-Davis SF magazines (Amazing included) and any foreign SF publication. The closest any US SF publication came to foreign markets was Galaxy Science Fiction Magazine which published editions in various european countries in the early '50's.
Posted by: George R. Morgan | January 5, 2008 2:05 PM
Intriguing! Do you know if this magazine cover is available for inspection on-line somewhere?
Posted by: Martin R | January 5, 2008 4:09 PM
it may be available on www.noosfere.com
Ihaven't had a chance to look -the info I provided is from my own copy of Science Fiction Adventures
Posted by: George R. Morgan | January 11, 2008 8:01 PM
more specifically: http//www.noosfere.com/showcase/pulps_magazines_am
The cover shown for issue #2(May '58) of the British mag 'Science Fiction Adventures' shows substantially the same image as the one on the Hapna! cover and is attributed in the reworking of the original Schoenherr cover of the US SFA/January '58 to Jose Rubios.
Posted by: George R. Morgan | January 18, 2008 10:59 PM
I can't get that URL to work. Could you please try copying and pasting it from your browser?
Posted by: Martin R | January 19, 2008 4:12 AM