Hanstein, Otfrid von

Tagged: Author

(1869-1959) German actor and author, prolific in various genres; of his sf novels, several were published in America in the 1930s, not in book form but translated under the aegis of Hugo Gernsback for Wonder Stories and Wonder Stories Quarterly. The translated stories are: Die Farm des Verschollenen: Phantatischer Roman (1924; trans Fletcher Pratt as "The Hidden Colony" January-March 1935 Wonder Stories), in which an automated Utopian City, made possible through the Inventions of a German Scientist, is discovered after World War One in the Yucatan; Ein Flug um die Welt und die Insel der seltsam Dinge (1927; trans Francis M Currie as "Utopia Island" May-June 1931 Wonder Stories), another ambivalently-described Utopia, this time in Peru, featuring advanced Technology, futuristic Transportation and Weather Control; Elektropolis: Die Stadt der technischen Wunder: Ein Zukunftsroman (1928; trans anon as "Electropolis" Summer 1930 Wonder Stories Quarterly), describing an Underground City in Australia, set up as Utopian colony designed ultimately to reclaim the outback, which the Australians resent; Mond-Rak 1: Eine Fahrt ins Weltall: Ein Zukunftsroman (1929; trans Walter Currie as "Between Earth and Moon" Fall 1930 Wonder Stories Quarterly), in which a Spaceship takes off accidentally from its mooring in the artificial Island of New Atlantis (see Atlantis) just west of San Francisco, and reaches the Moon; and "In the Year 8000" (apparently not published in German; trans by Laurence Manning and Konrad Schmidt July-September 1932 Wonder Stories), set on a Dystopian Earth, where scientific planning rules all, women are either neutered or bred in harems, and the Moon is a mining colony. Hanstein's sf is technophilic and space-oriented, crude but competent. [JC]

Otfrid von Hanstein

born Poppelsdorf, Bonn, Germany: 23 September 1869

died Berlin: 17 February 1959

works (selected)



Previous versions of this entry

Website design and build: STEEL

Site ©2011 Gollancz, SFE content ©2011 SFE Ltd.