Richard Funk (writer)

Richard Funk (born 1926 in Warsaw ) is a German science fiction writer.

Life

Funk was born in 1926 in a cemetery in Warsaw, where his father had an official apartment. Early on, he was enthusiastic about the science fiction by Jules Verne and the books by Bruno H. Bürgel . After the war he came to the GDR , where he initially worked as a construction worker, studying physics , working as an assistant lecturer at Verlag Technik in Berlin and as a technical employee at VEB Filmfabrik Wolfen . He completed a distance learning course in Köthen and from then on worked as a chemical engineer . From 1954 he lived in Dessau and worked there at the VEB Magnetbandfabrik Dessau. From 1964 he published poems and prose texts in newspapers, magazines and anthologies . In 1973 Das Neue Berlin published the novel Judgment Day on Epsi , which was subsequently also translated into Czech . The first edition was 20,000 copies. In 1983 a paperback edition appeared in the SF Utopia series by the same publisher.

Judgment Day on Epsi

The novel is about a conflict between three civilizations. Captain Lar, commander of a spaceship orbiting the planet Epsi in the system of the star Epsilon Eridani , which is 11 light-years away from Earth , strictly adheres to the instructions of the Epsilons, a race of spider-like creatures, which the expedition leader Kulmin is indignant about. While a landing party is studying the scientific and social facilities of the epsilons, Kulmin penetrates a forbidden zone and seizes two human-like beings who are sleeping in the cold. The epsilons then capture the landing party and put the earthly astronauts on trial. The beings awakened from sleep manage to relax the situation and achieve a balance. As it turns out, they are survivors of a civilization that existed on the planet millions of years ago and perished in a burst of rays from the Epsi Sun.

• First edition: Judgment Day on Epsi: Utopian Novel. The New Berlin, Berlin 1973.
• Paperback edition: Judgment Day on Epsi: Utopian Novel. SF Utopia series. The New Berlin, Berlin 1983.
• Czech translation: Soudnířízení na Epsí. Translated by Vladimír Svoboda. Svoboda, Prague 1980.

literature

• Hans Joachim Alpers , Werner Fuchs , Ronald M. Hahn , Wolfgang Jeschke : Lexicon of Science Fiction Literature. Heyne, Munich 1991, ISBN 3-453-02453-2 , p. 464.
• Ekkehard Redlin: Funk, Richard . In: Erik Simon, Olaf R. Spittel (ed.): The science fiction of the GDR: Authors and works. A lexicon. Das Neue Berlin, Berlin 1988, ISBN 3-360-00185-0 , pp. 146-148.

Web links

• Richard radio in the Internet Speculative Fiction Database (English)
• Judgment Day on EPSI - Richard Funk in Der phantastische Bcherscheibe