March 1996
During the first week we had an afternoon in Stuttgart, where I used our free time to visit the libraries and then went on to a major bookshop called Wittwer. Here I was given the contact for the local Star Trek group and also left my address.
Wittwer's had recently hosted a Star Trek event, and I picked up some publicity material which I'll bring along to the March meeting. The Stuttgart people have been in touch, and I've sent a couple of recent newsletters.
The second week was spent in Dresden. Golly, there's been a great deal of rebuilding in the three years since I was last there. Fortunately they've been able to retain their extensive tram network. If at times you feel as though the trams are rolling over the cobbles, at least they're fast and frequent and have excellent hot-air heating coming up through the seat-mountings - very helpful when you've just been soaked to the skin. Dresden is still car-hostile: no multi-storey car-parks infesting this city centre. If they can keep it going it might remain a decent place to tour on foot. If: there are still a few Trabbis to be seen, but the flood of VWs, Mercedes and Fords is pouring in. In Meissen - a few kilometres away - I even saw a Bentley.
Our hosts in Dresden took pains to remind us how badly-off they were: and indeed the pavement outside our accommodation was bare earth up to the kerb-stones, with gas lamps and a cobbled street garnished with a thin layer of tarmac. (This would have impressed me more if I didn't know that Mainz, capital of the Rhine-Palatinate in West Germany, also has streets with cobbles and gas lamps...)
Again I visited the bookshops, but had to cross the Elbe to find a contact for SF.
The contents of the bookshops proved quite interesting in SF terms. Restricted time made it impossible to conduct a survey on the lines of Vol 4 Nr 5, but here are some overall impressions:-
Wittwer in Stuttgart has a big SF/Fantasy/Comics section. The comics alone take up two walls, and cover a wide range, all in German. It's rather odd to read Corto Maltese in German... there again, I suppose it's odd to read Akira in English... Incidentally, in Germany Akira is published in 18 volumes so far.
One of the things I like to do is to compare names between languages: so in the German editions of Herge's famous series, Tintin becomes Tim, Milou becomes Struppi. But Captain Haddock keeps his name.
The situation in Dresden was rather different: the best-known bookshop there had only 8 shelves for SF, and another 8 for Fantasy/Star Trek/Indiana Jones. Two rotating displays held more SF including Perry Rhodan (big in Germany), Douglas Adams and Terry Pratchett. Discworld comes out as Scheibenwelt. Neat. Two more rotating displays held comics: 50% was Disney, 10% Tintin.
One thing which seems almost totally missing from German bookshelves is the Fantasy roleplay game. I found just one, translated from the American and so naff that even on a long and boring train journey I just couldn't bring myself to read any more of the wretched thing.
PC magazines with discs are also pretty common: I bought a couple - at DM 9,90 they're comparable with similar UK offerings under L 5,00 - but the problems with my CD drive have stopped me from trying them out so far. The main offerings are for PC format, but I also saw Amiga, Mac and OS/2.
Following-up the piece on the decline in tobacconists' shops in Britain, it was interesting to see that in Germany they are still doing very nicely, thank you. There again, in Germany tobacco is far less heavily taxed, so the overheads involved in buying stock must be lower (and by implication the profit mark-up, too). For example, a half-corona cigar such as you see me smoke at Phoenicians costs just under 50p in Germany: in Britain you can treble that.
Looking at the possibility of links with Germany, there has been not one answer to the copies of Phoenicians I sent over there, not even a card to say Get Lost. It's as bad as England. Trainspotters in Anoraks are supposed to be pretty sad people: I reckon SF fans beat them hands-down.
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