Fantasia 2000 returns to a festive one issue

This was revealed by the ISF website dealing with science fiction. In an interview with the Hidan site, Aharon Hauptman - one of the founders and editors of Fantasia 2000 - says: the issue will contain new content in the popular format

The mythological magazine Fantasia 2000, which was published starting in 1978 and stopped appearing after 44 issues in the mid-eighties, will come back to life during 2008, but only for one festive and special issue on the occasion of the Icon conference. This is what the website said yesterday ISF .

The mythological booklet is making a surprising comeback. After more than 20 years no booklet was published, in 2008 the new booklet will be published. In the 70s and up until the mid-80s, the magazine "Fantasia 2000" was the main magazine for MDB stories. Since then, he managed to take a serious position in the pantheon of the Medv in Israel, and today an old brochure in good condition can reach a seller of several hundred shekels. Now that 44 booklets have been published, the last of which was somewhere in the 80's, the 45th booklet is being published in preparation for the Battle of Us icon event.

Eli Tana, the first editor-in-chief and the publisher of the old booklet will serve as editor-in-chief while Aharon Hauptman, the second editor of the booklet from the XNUMXs was the editor-in-chief.

In a conversation with the Hiden site, Hauptman, a researcher at the Interdisciplinary Center for Forecasting and Planning at Tel Aviv University, says that the idea came up in the corridors of the Israel Science Fiction Association meeting held about two months ago at Bar-Ilan University with the participation of Larry Niven. "The idea came about during a conversation about the very round date of the 30th anniversary of the first publication of the magazine and everyone started to get excited.What will the sheet contain?

"Not yet known. In any case, one thing is known for sure - that the issue will contain a similar mix to what was in the newspaper at the time - translated stories, original stories (and this time too there will probably be more translated stories than original) as well as articles. The magazine will look similar both in terms of content and visually to the original Fantasia 2000 because that's what people remember fondly. There will be an effort for the content to be of a high standard so that it will be remembered for many years after the event. There is a debate as to whether to recycle a story that appeared in the past, I tend not to, and I prefer that the entire material be composed of stories that have not yet been published in Hebrew, and of course for this purpose the copyrights must be taken care of. We will be very careful about the copyright issue and we want to do it in an orderly manner. Its size will probably be 80 pages, this time there will almost certainly be color inside the booklet, as opposed to the situation in the original booklet where only the cover was colored. "

What will be the mix between hard science fiction and fantasy?

"It will be similar to Fantasy 2000 at the time and since I'm the editor my inclination is towards hard science fiction, but if a good fantasy story comes along, we won't dismiss it outright. Anyway, it's important to me to have some good hard sci-fi stories. If anyone has an idea for a shell story that has not yet appeared in Hebrew and the rights holder can be obtained, we would be happy. In addition, we may not write about predictions from the science fiction of that time that became reality, because that is not the role of science fiction, but we would be happy for an overview describing how science fiction has changed in the last 30 years. As for original stories - there are at least two Israeli MDB writers who want to write stories for this issue, but these are still in the initial stages, so I won't name them."

What about the classicists who have since passed away, and the last of them Arthur C. Clark?

"I definitely want the classics to be expressed - Asimov, Clarke, Heinlein, Silverberg. Since Clark passed away not long ago there will surely be something if not of Clark then about Clark, what's more he is a particular favorite of mine and of course I would like to publish something related to him. Hauptman points out that there will be cooperation between the publication of the special issue and the Israeli Science Fiction and Fantasy Association "although this is not an initiative of the association but of the original Fantasy 2000 people, of whom I am the head, but there is cooperation with the Science Fiction Association."

In conclusion, Hauptman says: "We joke between us and say that since the next issue will be published in another 30 years, this issue will have to be remembered for 30 years."