JESCHKE, Wolfgang

(1936-)

   German editor and writer, winner of the 1987 Harrison AWARD for achievements in international sf. He began to publish sf with "Die Anderen" ("The Others") in 1959, but first became strongly involved withthe genre in 1969 when, while working as co-editor of Kinders Literaturlexikon he edited as a freelancer the Science Fiction fur Kennerseries for Lichtenberg Verlag. In 1973 he took over Heyne Verlag's sf publishing line, a job he retains (1992) and in which he has been responsible for introducing many important works to the German market. He has also edited more than 100 anthologies, from 1970 on, many containing material translated from the English. WJ's first novel was Der Letzte Tag der Schopfung (1981; trans Gertrud Mander as The Last Day of Creation 1982 UK), in which a US group uses TIME TRAVEL to acquire Middle Eastern oil,evading the problems posed by modern-day local governments; TIME PARADOXES ensue. In Midas (1987; author's trans 1990 UK), set on a NEAR FUTURE Earth which has suffered severe ecological damage, a primitive matter-replication technique has been discovered, but the copies of humans thus produced are crude and cannot live longer than a few months. WJ's writing is humanist in orientation and strongly (on occasion overbearingly) ironic in tone, but is sometimes betrayed by a certain lack of subtlety and originality.

   NT

   See also: CLONES; GERMANY; POWER SOURCES.