Freunde von Darkover
| Community | |
|---|---|
| Name: | Freunde von Darkover |
| Date(s): | 1986-2009 (?) |
| Moderator: | Britta Rutkowski |
| Founder: | Petra Dombek |
| Type: | fan club |
| Fandom: | Darkover |
| URL: | website & Yahoo Group mailing list |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
Freunde von Darkover is a German Darkover fan club. They published two zines: Relays and Sternenkristall.
Membership in the fan club was to include a subscription to four issues of Relays along with a club newsletter. This newsletter, however, was not published as often as planned.
The fan club was founded in 1986 by Petra Dombek.[1] She published an ad in the anthology "Das Schwert des Chaos" (first edition 1986, Moewig) and the first fans came forward.[1] The first three newsletters were very thin; they didn't have more than 6 pages, and were published over a time of three years.[1] Because of time constraints and professional reasons, the founder transferred the club to Stephan Werner and Britta Rutkowski; their first issue of the newsletter, "Relays" #4, had 20 pages, and they published two to three issues a year.[1] MZB supported the fan club and gave permission to translate her "Letter from MZB" (also published in Friends of Darkover) to keep her German readers up to date on her latest projects.[1]
After a while, it was up to Britta to publish the newsletters when a lack of time forced Stephan to leave.[1] By then, the newsletters had a size of 30 to 40 pages, and they didn't just include letters but also book reviews, non-fiction, information about other authors, puzzles, and introductions of club members, etc.[1] Music, which is very important on Darkover, also had a place in the zines, even though the filk corner only appeared sporadically.[1]
The storyzine "Sternenkristall" was for Darkover stories by club members but only up to, 1992, the year of the "Contraband" incident which brought a sad end to these fan activities.[1]
The MZB short story "Ten minutes or so" - a nice little story about Dyan Ardais - was first published in "Sternenkristall 1" before it later appeared in a Darkover story anthology.[1] [2]
References
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j Freunde von Darkover online. (Accessed 23 February 2012)
- ^ "Ten Minutes or So" appeared the program book for Darkover Grand Council Meeting in 1979, and in Contes di Cottman IV #7 which was published in 1985; Freunde von Darkover most likely meant it hadn't been professionally published at that time, and is referring to the piece appearing in "Towers of Darkover" in 1993.