PETAJA, Emil (Theodore)

(1915-)

   US writer of Finnish descent, most of whose earlier fiction was fantasy rather than sf. He began publishing in 1935 with "The Two Doors" for the semiprozine UNUSUAL STORIES; his first professional sale was "Time Will Tell" for AMZ in 1942. Some of his early work can be found inStardrift, and Other Fantastic Flotsam (coll 1971). Occasionally he wrote as E. Theodore Pine (once with Henry L. HASSE), though only in magazines. A friend of Hannes BOK, EP founded the Bokanalia Foundation in 1967, afterBok's death, publishing a commemorative volume, And Flights of Angels: The Life and Legend of Hannes Bok (1968) and editing The Hannes Bok Memorial Showcase of Fantasy Art (1974). EP's first novel was Alpha Yes, Terra No! (1965 dos); he published a further 12 books over the next half decade. The best known make up a series based on the Finnish verse epic Kalevala. In each of the novels of the Kalevala sequence - Saga of Lost Earths (1966) and The Star Mill (1966), both assembled under their joint titles (omni 1979), and The Stolen Sun (1967 dos) and Tramontane (1967 dos), bothlikewise assembled under their joint titles (omni 1979) - a Terran descendant of one of the four main heroes of the Kalevala is reborn into his avatar's role to order to re-enact his adventures on Otava, the planet of origin of this pantheon. A fifth book of the sequence remains unpublished. A novel unconnected with the series but still related to the Kalevala is The Time Twister (1968). The Green Planet series - Lord of theGreen Planet (1967 dos) and Doom of the Green Planet (1968 dos) - recounts similar adventures befalling its Irish protagonist, who finds himself role-playing fake Celtic deities for the benefit of a madman armed with sf instruments of coercion. Most of EP's sf trades unpretentiously on the emotions aroused by mythical analogues like those in his Kalevala books; the adventure plots through which he evokes these resonances are by no means poorly conceived, and he remains entirely readable.

   JC

   Other works: The Caves of Mars (1965 dos); The Prism (1965 Worlds of Tomorrow; exp 1968 dos); The Nets of Space (1969); The Path Beyond the Stars (1969); Seed of the Dreamers (1970 dos); As Dream and Shadow (coll 1972), poetry.

   See also: FINLAND; MYTHOLOGY.