One might be surprised to learn that three (!) works of Czech speculative fiction in translation—all written by Josef Nesvadba—were published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (F&SF) over the course of 1962. The February issue included Nesvadba’s “Pirate Island,” May’s volume featured “The Einstein Brain,” and June treated Anglophone readers to “The Xeenemuende Half-Wit.”
Nesvadba was a psychiatrist, doctor, and author who started off writing drama, but, according to the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, he quickly switched to detective stories and satirical SF, continuing the tradition of Czech speculative fiction begun by Karel Čapek, famous for introducing the word robot to the English language. Three collections of Nesvadba’s story exist in English—all translated by Iris Irwin: Vampires Ltd: Stories of Science and Fantasy (1964), In the Footsteps of the Abominable Snowman: Stories of Science and Fantasy (1970), and The Lost Face: Best Science Fiction from Czechoslovakia (1971).
Nesvadba’s stories in F&SF during 1962 showcase the author’s playfulness and versatility. In “Pirate Island,” (1957, tr. 1962) later included in Vampires Ltd., a pirate writes an account of how he discovered an island paradise filled with gold and then mended his ways. When he tries to protect his treasure from another captain and even the Queen of England, the island’s native people refuse to be drafted as security guards. A fight breaks out, and the native people are killed, after which the pirate returns to his old ways and old job, wondering where he went wrong.
“The Einstein Brain” (1960, tr. 1962) is a twist on the brain-in-a-jar trope crossed with Frankenstein. In Nesvadba’s telling, the world has become bored with all of the wonders that technology has brought it, and no one is interested in math, engineering, or physics anymore. One professor at a conference extols the virtues of a mechanical brain that he created, but the narrator argues that what the world needs is a new kind of biological brain built from the brains of deceased geniuses. At first, the biological super-brain begins solving complex problems, but eventually becomes lonely and demands more attention. Then it wants a body. It lives out a short life, making friends and taking in the natural beauty of the world, and then dies. As the narrator notes at the end, maybe her daughter was right: “Perhaps we really have neglected the art of living too much in recent years. It is an art and not a science. Yet calls for the deepest wisdom.”
Nesvadba’s last story in F&SF in 1962 was “The Xeenemuende Half-Wit” (1960, tr. 1962), a piece about an “idiot savant” who helps his rocket scientist father by inventing a new rocket targeting system during World War II. When the SS find out about the boy’s talents, they attempt to recruit him, but when he can’t respond, they beat him instead and deem him a danger. “We cannot allow anyone to kill his neighbours just because they do something to annoy him. And with modern technique, too. He was an idiot,” the SS major says, oblivious of the irony. Oblivious, at least, until air raid sirens sound and the Allied missiles destroy a quarter of the town.
Josef Nesvadba is considered a pre-eminent writer in Czech SF, and his works are filled with satire and political commentary. Have you read any of these translated works first published in English in 1962? How relevant do you find Nesvadba’s themes from yesterday to the worlds of today and tomorrow?