Home » Education & Career » Esperanto » Esperanto and Science Fiction. Part One - Page 2

Esperanto and Science Fiction. Part One - Page 2

© David Poulson

I find it very interesting that both Don and Forry first became aware of Esperanto by reading about it in a work of science fiction. Several years ago, I was a frequent visitor and occasional contributor to the newsgroup soc.culture.esperanto and there I became aware that quite a few of the other participants in that discussion forum had first heard of Esperanto via science fiction. (For other Esperanto discussion forums on the Internet, see: http://www.esperanto.net/veb/flavaj-pagx... ) In most, if not all, of the cases that I can remember from that time, the interest had been stimulated either by the "Stainless Steel Rat" stories of Harry Harrison, or by the British TV series, Red Dwarf.

Coincidentally, at about this time, Harry Harrison was interviewed by Geoffrey Sutton, the editor of the journal Esperanto. If you have access to a back-file of this journal, the interview was published in the May 1985 issue. (You might like to note that the preferred translation of "Stainless Steel Rat" - at least the one used by Sutton and Harrison - is "Korodimuna S^talrato."). However, if you can't find this copy of Esperanto, you can find two other interesting interviews with Harry Harrison at the following links,:

http://www.eonmagazine.com/archive/9901/... http://sf.www.lysator.liu.se/sf_archive/...

There is a lot of information about the TV series Red Dwarf, on the Web, by the way. You might like to start here:

http://www.neosplice.com/~ailanto/reddwa... http://www.reddwarf.co.uk/index1.html

Although I was pleased to learn of this effective form of promotion of Esperanto, I was also quite surprised. It's 30 years since I learned the language and during those three decades I have read a lot of science fiction but I still don't remember coming across a single mention of Esperanto in those books I did read. It just goes to show: obviously I had not been reading the right authors! And I guess I had not taken very much notice of a very short article written by Karl Pov in the 70th issue (published in 1981) of Kontakto.

This is the journal of TEJO (La Tutmonda Esperantista Junulara Organizo). http://www.esperanto.org/internacia/TEJO/ and the article in question, which is entitled "Pri Esperanto kaj Planlingvoj en la Anglalingva Sciencfikcio" ("About Esperanto and Planned Languages in Science Fiction Written in English"), mentions several authors, including three - Mack Reynolds, Philip Jose Farmer and Harry Harrison - who not only introduced Esperanto in their fiction but could speak the language themselves.

Further information - in abundance - about the writers just mentioned and about Esperanto in English Science Fiction can be found in the Appendix to Don Harlow's book and, since Don has been kind enough to make it readily available via the WWW, there is no need for me to go over the same ground again. Just as well, as I have almost exceeded my word-limit for this article.

The copyright of the article Esperanto and Science Fiction. Part One - Page 2 in Esperanto is owned by . Permission to republish Esperanto and Science Fiction. Part One - Page 2 in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.