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Walther, Daniel

Entry updated 12 September 2022. Tagged: Author, Editor.

(1940-2018) French editor and author who began publishing short stories in 1965, publishing at least 165 tales over the following decades; he proved an eclectic author and easy stylist who could switch from Hard SF to Heroic Fantasy. Mais l'espace ... Mais le temps ["What about Space? What about Time?"] (1972) is a long novella blending space Technology and Magic. Requiem pour demain ["Requiem for Tomorrow"] (coll 1976) shows him at his most experimental, gathering work which reminded critics of Harlan Ellison; Les Quatre Saisons de la Nuit ["The Four Seasons of the Night"] (coll 1980) assembles dark fantasies, as does Nocturne sur fond d'épées ["Nocturne with Swords"] (coll 2007). He edited Les soleils noirs d'Arcadie ["Black Suns of Arcadia"] (anth 1975), a manifesto for the New Wave.

His first novels, Krysnak ou le complot ["Krysnak; Or, the Conspiracy"] (1978) and L'Epouvante ["Dread"] (1979) remain untranslated; "The Gunboat Dread", the story from which the latter was derived, appeared in Maxim Jakubowski's Travelling towards Epsilon (anth 1976). As the editor of the Club du Livre d'Anticipation he published American heroic fantasy in translation, including work by C J Cherryh, who reciprocated by bringing the early volumes of his Far-Future Swa sequence to America. Le Livre de Swa (1982; trans Cherryh as The Book of Shai 1984) and Le Destin de Swa (1983; trans Cherryh as Shai's Destiny 1985) are intricately composed Post-Holocaust dramas of some moral complexity in which young Swa (translated as Shai) confronts and attempts to bring together the various raging factions of a balkanized world; La Légende de Swa ["The Legend of Shai"] (1983) and Le Livre de Swa ["The Book of Shai"] (2006) remain untranslated, as has most of Walther's more recent work, much of it focused on the Dystopian implications of the contemporary world. [MJ/JC]

see also: France.

Daniel Walther

born Munster, Haut-Rhin, France: 10 March 1940

died Mulhouse, France: 3 March 2018

works

series

Swa

  • Le Livre de Swa (Paris: Le Fleuve Noir, 1982) [Swa: in the publisher's Anticipation series: pb/Jim Burns]
  • Le Destin de Swa (Paris: Le Fleuve Noir, 1983) [Swa: in the publisher's Anticipation series: pb/Peter Goodfellow]
  • La Légende de Swa ["The Legend of Shai"] (Paris: Le Fleuve Noir, 1983) [Swa: in the publisher's Anticipation series: pb/Tim White]

individual titles (selected)

  • Krysnak ou le complot ["Krysnak; Or, the Conspiracy"] (Paris: Éditions Denoël, 1978) [binding unknown/Stéphane Dumont]
  • L'Épouvante ["Dread"] (Paris: J'ai lu, 1979) [binding unknown/Tibor Csemus]
  • Morbidezza, Inc. (Encino, California: Hollywood Comics/Black Coat Press, 2008) [pb/Jean-Félix Lyon]

collections and stories (selected)

links

previous versions of this entry



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