Bertil Mårtensson
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Bertil Mårtensson (born 1945 in Malmö, now living in Helsingborg) is a Swedish author of science fiction and fantasy and also an academic philosopher.
Since his youth, Mårtensson has written mainly science fiction short stories and novels, and a lengthy fantasy trilogy published in 1979–83 and in a revised edition in 1997.
His work has in style and themes been compared by Swedish critics to those of Clifford D. Simak, Theodore Sturgeon, Arabian Nights and J. R. R. Tolkien.
He began his career as a highly active science fiction fan, co-editing Science Fiction Forum with John-Henri Holmberg and Mats Linder in the sixties, and later himself in the nineties. He has also contributed many short stories and articles to Swedish science fiction fanzines, and been Guest of Honor at several national science fiction conventions.
His first novel, Detta är verkligheten ("This is reality"), was awarded at the Paneuropean convention in Trieste in 1972, and has been translated into Danish and Czech (in the previous Czechoslovakia). He has published science fiction stories in English, German, French, Danish, Spanish, Italian, and perhaps more (see below for some references). Mårtensson also wrote four police-type detective novels in the late seventies, the second of which was awarded the Sherlock Award for best detective novel of 1977.
As a philosopher, he has published a textbook of formal logic and an introduction to the philosophy of science and is working on an epistemological essay. His main interests lie in cognition, concept-formation, and the growth of knowledge as in the sciences. He is Associate Professor at Lund University.
[edit] References
- John Clute and Peter Nicholls: The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, An Orbit Book 1993. (Article: Scandinavia)
- John-Henri Holmberg: Fantasy, fantasylitteraturens historia, motiv och författare, Replik 1995. (pp. 217-218)
- John-Henri Holmberg: Inre landskap och yttre rymd, del 2 – science fictions historia från J. G. Ballard till Gene Wolfe. Bibliotekstjänst, Lund 2003. (pp. 469-475)
- Nationalencyklopedin, Bra Böcker Publishers (also on-line).
- Peter Nicholls (ed): The Science Fiction Encyclopedia, Doubleday & Co. 1979. (Short article)
[edit] Story references in English
- A Modest Proposal (Hilary Bailey & Charles Platt (eds): New Worlds 7, Sphere Books 1974)
- The Fifth Time Out (in Richard D. Nolane (ed): Terra SF, The Year's Best European SF, Daw Books 1981.)
- Myxomatosis Forte (in Brian Aldiss and Sam J. Lundwall (eds): The Penguin World Omnibus of Science Fiction, Penguin Books 1986.)
[edit] Some non-English story references
- Androiden denken nicht (Herbert W. Franke (ed): Kontinuum 2, Ullstein Buch April 1986)
- La Tempête (Fiction No 296, Décembre 1978)
- Le Cinquième Voyage (Fiction No. 303, Juillet-août 1979)
- Il vecchio e la tempesta (I Romanzi del Cosmo Fantascienza, N. 195, Settem 1966.)
