franz rottensteiner born in waidmannsfeld lower austria austria on 18 january 1942 is an austrian publisher and critic in the fields of science fiction and the fantasticrottensteiner studied journalism english and history at the university of vienna receiving his doctorate in 1969 he served about fifteen years as librarian and editor at the sterreichisches institut fr bauforschung in vienna in addition he produced a number of translations into german of leading sf authors including herbert w franke stanislaw lem philip k dick kobo abe cordwainer smith brian w aldiss and the strugatski brothersin 1973 his new york anthology view from another shore of european science fiction introduced a number of continental authors to the englishreading public some of the authors in the work are stanislaw lem josef nesvadba gerard klein and jeanpierre andrevonthe year 1975 saw the start of his series die phantastischen romane for seven years it republished works of both lesser and betterknown writers as well as new ones ending with a total of 28 volumes in the years 19791985 he brought out trnaslations of h g wellss works in an eighteen volumes seriesrottensteiner provoked some controversy with his negative assessment of american science fiction what matters is the highest achievements and there the us has yet to produce a figure comparable to hg wells olaf stapledon karel apek or stanisaw lem rottensteiner describedroger zelazny barry n malzberg and robert silverberg as producing travesties of fiction and stated asimov is a typical nonwriter and heinlein and andersonare just banal however rottensteiner praised philip k dick listing him as one of the greatest sf writers from 1980 through 1998 he was advisor for suhrkamp verlags phantastische bibliothek which brought out some three hundred books in all he has edited about fifty anthologies produced two illustrated books the science fiction book 1975 und the fantasy book 1978 as well as working on numerous reference works on science fiction his close association with and promotion of lem until 1995 was a factor in the recognition of the latter in the united statesrottensteiner has been the editor of quarber merkur the leading german language critical journal of science fiction since 1963 in 2004 on the occasion of the hundredth number of this journal he was awarded a special kurdlawitzpreis