Czech science fiction and fantasy

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Karel Čapek's War with the Newts.

Science fiction and fantasy in the Czech Republic has a long and varied history. From 1918, when Czechoslovakia became independent, until 1939, when Nazi Germany invaded it, Czech literature is considered to have enjoyed one of its high points.^[1]

Czech writers developed their works as aesthetic pieces rather than as platforms demanding independence for the Czech people. One of these writers was Karel Čapek, whose play R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots) (1921), introduced and made popular the frequently used international word robot.^[2]

Čapek is perhaps best known as a science fiction author, who wrote long before science fiction became established as a separate genre. He can be considered one of the founders of classical, non-hardcore European science fiction, a type which focuses on possible future (or alternative) social and human evolution on Earth, rather than technically advanced stories of space travel. However, it is best to classify him with Aldous Huxley and George Orwell as a mainstream literary figure who used science-fiction motifs. Many of his works discuss ethical and other aspects of revolutionary inventions and processes that were already anticipated in the first half of 20th century. These include mass production, atomic weapons, and post-human intelligent beings such as robots or intelligent salamanders (such as in his War with the Newts).

Josef Nesvadba was considered to be one of the best-known (if not the best known) authors of Czech science-fiction.^[3]

[edit] Czech science fiction and fantasy writers

[edit] Further reading

“Science Fiction, a Global Community: Czech Republic,” Locus, 32 (4): 42. April 1994.
“SF in the Czech Republic,” Locus, 31 (6): 38. December 1993.
Adamovic, Ivan. Encyklopedie fantastického filmu. Praha: Cinema, 1994. 224pp.
Adamovic, Ivan. “SF in the Czech Republic,” Locus, 34 (4): 38-9. April 1995.
Adamovic, Ivan. “SF in the Czech Republic,” Locus, 33 (1): 45-46. July 1994.
Hauser, Eva. “Science Fiction in the Czech Republic and the Former Czechoslovakia: The Pleasures and the Disappointments of the New Cosmopolitanism,” Science Fiction Studies, 21 (2): 133-140. July 1994.