Jörgen Peterzén

By Ahrvid Engholm: Swedish book editor and fan Jörgen Peterzén (born 1941) passed away in early March. A friendly, humorous man I knew rather well. We bumped into each other at conventions, meetings of the Scandinavian SF Association (where he earlier was chairman) and publishing events. He also served in the jury for the short story competition Fantastiknovelltävlingen several times, which my SKRIVA E-mail list founded nearly two decades ago. In the 1960’s he published the fanzine Fregna and was also responsible for printing the leading sercon zine SF-Forum on his mimeograph, which he named Atla Press. Jörgen was Guest of Honour of Nasacon 7, 1986, and Upsala SF-Möte VII, 1998.

He joined fandom in the early 1960s when he became member of Sam J Lundwall’s Hyborian Legion club, also known as Legio de Hyborealis, which was Sam J’s old 1950’s club, Cosmos Club of Hägersten, in a revised version. There he became engaged in the famous Fannish War as Lord Jorge, leader of the hyborian state Atlan. (This “war” was a sort of satire or parody of mundane world politics “fought” through fanzines, correspondence, tape recordings and even 8 mm amateur films.)

Later he together with Sam J and Anders Palm founded the Stockholm Tolkien society Forodrim (where he was known under the alias Dallben), which took place in the Men’s Room during the SF*72 sf con, in the early 1970’s. It was Jörgen Peterzen who wrote Forodrim’s statutes, which became an interesting pastische of old, solemn language. (A little-known fact is that Forodrim was formally founded simply as the renamed Hyborian Legion, which in its turn was Sam J’s sf club from the 1950s! The Stockholm Tolkien Society was formally an SF club from the beginning – I suspect Gandalf and Bilbo are unaware of this!)

As a book editor, he began working for Askild & Kärnekull in the 1970s, which was later re-named Legenda and finally swallowed by the Natur & Kultur publishing house, where he remained until his retirement. They published a lot of sf and fantasy, including Stephen Donaldson, Isaac Asimov and Robert Jordan. Jörgen Peterzen also worked as a translator and wrote a book about magic (Magi, 1971).

It is extremely sad that another one of our Old Owls now flies away into higher spheres. The threads to the past break, one by one.