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Science fiction history in SwedenSweden has always been isolated from cultural development, and this especially shows in the eighteenth century during the "Enlightenment". A small group of aristocrats in the court of Gustav III did spend their time with literary diversions, but except for the court... Sweden at this time was a poor, starving country that mostly earned its living by agriculture. The literary fantasies were very few. The first examples of what you might call the predecessors of Swedish science fiction, were often "borrowed" stories from famous foreign authors. The first Swedish novel that can be described as modern science fiction, with all that goes with it, was published as late as 1878. The novel was Oxygen och Aromasia (yes, it is named like that in Swedish too) by the journalist Claes Lundin (1825-1908). But even this novel had "borrowed" a little more than suitable from the German novel Bilder aus der Zukunft by Kurd Lasswitz. Lundin never wrote more science fiction, and no new talents appeared for a long time. Very little happened before the sudden appearance of Otto Witt (1875-1923) in 1912. He wrote dozens of science fiction novels, which all contained new scientific theories (most of them improbable and totally unbelievable). His 22 science fiction novels along with lots of detective- and love-novels (all of them written over a period of ten years!) are practically forgotten today. His biggest achievement, however, was the publication of the first science fiction-magazine in Sweden, Hugin, which was published between 1916 and 1920. The inspiration probably came from German and French science fiction magazines, but the style was entirely Witt's own. Hugin is still unique amongst the worlds science fiction magazines, since it was written, edited and published solely by Otto Witt. The first real science fiction-magazine was not published until 1940. It was called Jules Verne-Magasinet and was influenced a lot by American pulp magazines. It was published until 1947. In 1954 the magazine Häpna! was published for the first time. This magazine took more interest in the Swedish talents. Authors like Bertil Mårtensson, Sture Lönnerstrand, Per Lindström, Denis Lindbohm, Jacob Palme and Gabriel Setterborg began their writing in Häpna! But with the start of the new magazine Galaxy, Häpna's leading role diminished, to finally end in quiet, 1965. The fourth science fiction- magazine in Sweden was in other words Galaxy. It was in many ways a copy of the American original. Still, it was only published until 1960. This magazine tried to make a translation of the term "science fiction", they came up with "faktasi" (fact and fantasy), but this name disappeared with the magazine. In the end, Häpna! was after all the last surviving magazine. Sweden never had any real famous science fiction authors, but the most famous is probably Sam J. Lundwall. He has written many novels, his most famous being Alice, Alice, and he has put together several short story collections named Det hände i morgon (and then a number). He is also the expert in the field with many nonfiction books about science fiction (just look at my reference list). The second science fiction expert is John-Henri Holmberg.
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