Mader, Friedrich W
Entry updated 28 November 2022. Tagged: Author.
(1866-1945) German author, mainly of juvenile novels, many set in German East Africa and written somewhat in the style of H Rider Haggard. Wunderwelten (1911; trans Max Shachtman as Distant Worlds: The Story of a Voyage to the Planets 1932) is a juvenile which takes its Spaceship crew to Mars and finally – one of the first sf texts to indicate clearly that Faster Than Light speeds would be required for rapid interstellar travel – to Alpha Centauri, where they explore an Eden-like planet. The spaceship is described as being vast, though the term "World-Ship" applied to it should not be taken to seriously adumbrate the contemporary use of the term World Ship. The content of the tale is quite advanced for 1911, and although it is not well written it plausibly established Mader as a significant figure in German sf along with Hans Dominik and Kurd Laßwitz. Other untranslated works include El Dorado (1919; vt Auf den Spuren der Inkas), Die letzte Atlantide ["The Last Atlantis"] (1923) and Die Messingstadt ["City of Brass"] (1924). [PN/JE/JC]
Ernst Friedrich Wilhelm Mader
born Nice, France: 1 September 1866
died Bönnigheim, Germany: 30 March 1945
works
- Wunderwelten (Munich, Germany: Heyne Verlag, 1911) [hb/Will Egler]
- Distant Worlds: The Story of a Voyage to the Planets (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1932) [trans by Max Shachtman of the above: hb/]
- El Dorado (Stuttgart, Germany: Union Deutsche Verlagsgesellschaft, 1919) [binding unknown/]
- Auf den Spuren der Inkas: El Dorado (Dusseldorf, Germany: Dt Buchbertreibs-u Verlag, 1952) [vt of the above: binding unknown/]
- Die letzte Atlantide ["The Last Atlantis"] (Stuttgart, Germany: Union Deutsche Verlagsgesellschaft, 1923) [binding unknown/]
- Die Messingstadt ["City of Brass"] (Stuttgart, Germany: Union Deutsche Verlagsgesellschaft, 1924) [binding unknown/]
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