Sture Lönnerstrand

(March 13, 1919 – September 30, 1999)

John Sture Lennart Lönnerstrand left his home town of Jönköping for Lund University in 1937, publishing his first book of poetry in 1939. He then moved to Stockholm to pursue a career as writer, and published a second book of poetry – in fact an epic fantasy poem inspired by the Icelandic sagas – in 1941, but also found it impossible to live off writing modernistic poetry. Instead he became an essayist and short story writer, and now called on his early interest in sf. From 1943 through 1945, among other writings he publidhed a series of close to 75 science fiction and science fantasy stories in a weekly family magazine. These so fascinated one of his readers, Roland Adlerberth, that they met in 1950 and started the first bona fide science fiction club in Sweden, Futura.

Since Adlerberth lived in Gothenburg, the club became Lönnerstrand's own turf. It grew slowly but with sometimes impressive talents: poet Per Lindström joined early, as did air force lieutenant Björn Nyberg and others; Nyberg was a member of the editorial staff on Häpna! and later co-wrote Conan stories with L. Sprague de Camp. In 1954, Futura started Sweden's third fanzine, also named Futura, which had six issues through 1956. Lönnerstrand was also a driving force behind Sweden's second and third sf conventions, in Stockholm in 1957 and 1958. However his heavy-handed control of the club led to dissatisfaction among many members, and while Lönnerstrand in 1958 was away on a trip to London, a general meeting in Futura was called, the club was disbanded and reconstituted as the Stockholm chapter of the then newly formed country-wide Science Fiction Union Scandinavia (which in turn survived for only two years).

On his return, Lönnerstrand discovered that the club he had been chairman of no longer existed, and this understandably soured him on fandom. He later participated in only two conventions, in 1963 and in 1970, and contributed a handful of short stories and essays to primarily Science fiction forum, but otherwise had no further contact with fandom. During the later part of his creative life, he concentrated not on sf but on parapsychology, becoming internationally known for his book Shanti Devi, a study in reincarnation.

(Entry in The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction: https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/lonnerstrand_sture)