The series bibliography of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. contains more than forty books and is very popular. Book publishers are trying to publish new circulations. The convergence between the two directions — games and books — ultimately leads to cross-fertilization. The attempt at literary implementation (even taking into account the “Heroes of Annihilated Empires” series) is by no means the first by GSC Game World. The company seriously decided to spread this practice on the German book market five years earlier. They signed a contract with the publisher Panini and the writers Bernd Frenz and Claudia Kern. All of the novels they wrote were well received by critics and readers in Germany and became bestsellers. Several novels from the Russian series were then translated into German.

With the help of Oleg Yavorsky (PR Director at GSC Game World), the reporters from GSC-Fan established a connection with the fiction writer Bernd Frenz and asked him to answer some questions. This exclusive interview is now available.

[Oleg Yavorsky]: The S.T.A.L.K.E.R. novels in Germany were initially, as in the CIS, an experiment. There were enough fans of the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. game and we quickly found an agreement with the local publisher — Panini Books. They went to great lengths to find suitable authors. We discussed the topic together and provided enough source material. The license issued was initially valid for three books. The release ran parallel to the release of “Shadow of Chernobyl”. Our German partners are very satisfied with the series and are continuing it: commercially, the Russian series S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is very successful, but it is also interesting for us to see the game illuminated through literature from different international perspectives. I hope we can achieve it in the near future.

The Ukrainian company GSC Game World and the German publisher Panini have signed a contract for the publication of the book series for the game S.T.A.L.K.E.R., which was specifically intended for the German market. The writers Claudia Kern and Bernd Frenz took over the adaptation of the novel. The first novel in the trilogy “Death Zone” (“Todeszone”), which tells the backstory of S.T.A.L.K.E.R., was published at the beginning of 2006. The second book “Inferno” was written entirely by Bernd Frenz and came onto the market in 2007, when the game S.T.A.L.K.E.R. was released. The last volume of the cycle “Apocalypse” (“Apokalypse”) was published in 2008 under the authorship of Bernd Frenz.

Bernd Frenz, born in 1964, wrote short stories for music and role-playing magazines at an early age and won a story competition organized by Wolfgang Hohlbein. Despite completing a commercial apprenticeship and studying business administration, he decided to work as a freelance journalist and novelist in order to be able to better live out his love of adventure, history and fiction. He was one of the main authors of the SF-series “Maddrax”, wrote for “Perry Rhodan” and wrote three novels for the hit computer game “S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl”. In 2009, his large fantasy trilogy “Blood Orcs” (“Blutorks”) was published by Blanvalet.

Claudia Kern specializes in novelizations and scripts for computer games. She is the author of many novels for the series “Maddrax”, “Professor Zamora”, “Perry Rhodan” and “Anno”, translated novels for Halo and Warcraft and co-wrote the storyline of the computer game “DarkStar One”. Together with Bernd Frenz she wrote the novel “Death Zone”. Claudia Kern is also editor of the SF-magazine “Space View”. Unfortunately we had no way to get in touch with her.

[GSC-Fan]: Hello, Mr. Frenz! We look forward to speaking with you. We think that it would be interesting for our readers to know more about the author of the cycle S.T.A.L.K.E.R. in Germany. How did you get into the world of fiction?

[Bernd Frenz]: I have always enjoyed reading novels of a wide variety of genres, especially historical novels and crime novels, but also all types of fiction, i.e. sci-fi, horror and fantasy. When I was young, the American author Stephen King was very popular, and of course I read a lot of him. But back then I was also a big fan of H.P. Lovecraft and his Cthulhu stories, and I also liked everything by Robert E. Howard. I have hardly read any Russian authors, but I have seen a lot of Russian fairy tales and fiction films. Although I grew up in West Germany, my family was able to receive East German television because we lived relatively close to the inner-German border. Of course there were a lot of Russian films in the program. As a child I really liked a lot of Russian and Czech fairy tale films, and later it was the Jules Verne film adaptations by the Czech Karel Zeman. In the 80s I also saw Andrei Tarkovsky’s “Stalker” for the first time and was deeply impressed.

“Death Zone”: “Almost 20 years have passed since Unit 4 of the Ukrainian Chernobyl Nuclear Plant was destroyed in 1986 by a meltdown and explosion with catastrophic consequences for people and nature. The ruins and abandoned houses of Pripyat city, formerly inhabited by power plant employees and now deserted, have now become a focal point for sightseeing tourists who approach the still contaminated “Death Zone” in pleasant horror.
One of these onlookers is the young German David Rothe, who stops in the silent city with his parents during a bus trip through Ukraine. Suddenly the vehicle and its occupants disappear in a bright flash of energy. When Ukrainian security forces arrive at the scene of the phenomenon, they find only David in the ruins, unconscious and with burnt clothes. Major Alexander Marinin, who is tasked with investigating what happened, encounters a wall of silence from the military and politicians, and the young German is of no help to him either, as he doesn’t remember anything, but states that he feels a strange longing for the Death Zone.

A few years later: David, who has grown into a man, roams the Zone around the nuclear reactor — observed by various secret services — in search of his parents, using special psychic abilities to protect him from the deadly dangers of the area — mutated rats, zombies, gravity mines, deadly fog and murderous plants. When chance brings him and Marinin together again, the two manage to track down the phenomena that seem to have their origins in secret laboratories beneath the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant complex, but once again politicians and the military threaten to thwart them.”

[GSC-Fan]: Is there a difference between German fiction writers and your foreign-speaking colleagues?

[Bernd Frenz]: I don’t think so. Fiction authors want to entertain their readers with imaginative stories, and in this they are probably the same all over the world. The writing styles may sometimes differ, but this diversity is what makes it really interesting for readers.

[GSC-Fan]: What do your relatives say about your writing work?

[Bernd Frenz]: Well, at the beginning you are of course always thought to be a bit crazy, but as soon as you start making money with it, that goes away very quickly :) In principle, I can’t complain. My parents have always supported me, even though they never had anything to do with the novels I wrote. The first people in my family to read my books were my sisters-in-law, but unfortunately my three older brothers are a bit lazy about reading.

[GSC-Fan]: What rules and conditions do you use for co-authorship? What interests you about collective work?

[Bernd Frenz]: I co-wrote the German apocalyptic series “Maddrax” for several years. There we were a team of five authors who wrote together a series that was published every two weeks as a 64-page magazine. The nice thing about teamwork like this is that you’re constantly exchanging ideas and that can be very inspiring. The negative thing about this is that an author also has to support ideas that he himself doesn’t like.



I worked particularly well with my colleague Claudia Kern at “Maddrax”. We were mostly on the same wavelength with our ideas, which is why we wrote novels together several times on Maddrax because we noticed that we made faster progress if we threw ideas at each other like balls. With the first S.T.A.L.K.E.R. novel we did it the same way. We met and thought out the plot together and agreed who should write which chapters. Since Claudia was busy with other assignments, I wrote most of the text alone for the first volume. She didn’t have any time for volumes two and three, so I tackled these novels all by myself.

“Inferno”: “On April 12, 2006, illegal psi-experiments lead to a terrible catastrophe. An area of 30-kilometer radius from the decommissioned Chernobyl nuclear reactor is declared the Exclusion Zone.
Six years later, the situation worsened dramatically. The barrier can no longer be maintained. Countless soldiers of fortune, so-called stalkers, scour the contaminated area for artifacts that find buyers worldwide. Many stalkers pay a high price for their greed for money, as they are confronted with inexplicable phenomena and voracious mutants at every turn. Those responsible for the disaster are trying to save what can be saved at all costs. To this end, they make use of the Monolith Stalkers, a religious sect that carries out their every criminal plan.

Only two men stand in their way. David Rothe and Major Alexander Marinin, who are once again pushing into the Zone to save the world from an inferno of unimagined proportions.”

[GSC-Fan]: What did you use at work? The GSC Game World staff probably gave you the game materials? What allowed you to get into the spirit of this game?

[Bernd Frenz]: When we wrote the first novel “Death Zone”, the game wasn’t even on sale yet. However, we received the background material from GSC, which was also available to the game developers. Since we decided to tell the backstory of the Zone in the first novel, i.e. how the illegal research under the reactor leads to the catastrophe, we were sufficiently informed, although there were later deviations from the final game. For example, the manuscript mentioned gravity mines, which no longer appear in the game (probably, it refers to “the mosquito mange spot” or the graviconcentrate — editor’s note). Before I started the second novel, I visited the German S.T.A.L.K.E.R. publisher and was able to spend an afternoon playing the beta version of “Shadow of Chernobyl”. Thanks to the God mode, I was also able to look around at the end of the game and had enough information to write volumes two and three, in which the story of David Rothe and the Ukrainian detective Alexander Marinin is told to the end.



[GSC-Fan]: Did you have any difficulties writing the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. books?

[Bernd Frenz]: No, not at all. I like dark end-time scenarios, in that sense the plot of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. met me half-way. The good thing about the story is, of course, that it takes place on a real site that I was able to find out a lot about. This helped me a lot to describe the scenes within the Zone.

[GSC-Fan]: The main hero of the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. trilogy, David Rothe, is a German tourist who visited Chernobyl. Do you have a real desire to visit Chernobyl?

[Bernd Frenz]: If the opportunity arises, why not? I see the site as a memorial that shows us all where humanity can go if we are not careful. This is a real piece of contemporary history that of course interests me. In order to have a relaxing vacation, I would rather go to the sea to swim :)

[GSC-Fan]: Panini has received the rights to publish in Germany the books of the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series, which are published in the CIS: “Kill Zone” and “Line of Fire” by Vasily Orekhov (“Zone der Verdammten”, “Im Kreuzfeuer” von Wasilij Orechow), “Deserter” by Alexey Stepanov (“Deserteur” von Aleksej Stepanow), “The House on The Swamp” by Alexey Kalugin (“Tödliche Sümpfe” von Aleksej Kalugin). Have you read these books, what do you think about these novels?



[Bernd Frenz]: Unfortunately, I haven’t managed to read any of the other books yet. But I know from the Panini editors that the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series is one of the publisher's best-performing video game series. This applies not only to my trilogy, but also to the novels of my Russian colleagues. The S.T.A.L.K.E.R. novels are all well received by German readers.

[GSC-Fan]: Is it possible to release the cycle “Death Zone”, “Inferno” and “Apocalypse” in Russian? It is known that the Russian publisher Eksmo has a contract with Panini Books and part of the first novel has been translated. But at a certain point the project was frozen.

[Bernd Frenz]: Yes, that’s right. I would of course be very happy if the three novels were published in Russian, because every author wants to be read by as many people as possible. And publishing in a foreign country is always something very special. Unfortunately, I don’t know why the translation was stopped. I assume there are licensing issues (an issue of sharing the rights to the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. book series between publishers Eksmo and AST — editor’s note), but that’s just a guess.

[GSC-Fan]: Do you have the desire to continue writing about this topic?

[Bernd Frenz]: For me, the topic of Chernobyl has actually been covered exhaustively in the three books, but who knows what other interesting games will come? :) At the moment I’m mostly busy with my own fantasy worlds. So I’ve just written a trilogy about the Blood Orcs, an orc people with very special abilities who command lava and have to defend themselves against human invaders.

[GSC-Fan]: Do you devote your free time to playing computer games or surfing the Internet? Are you familiar with the game S.T.A.L.K.E.R.?

[Bernd Frenz]: Of course, it’s hard to imagine my life without the Internet. Sometimes I surf way too much and then consciously try to limit myself. Since I’m a big comic fan, I often hang out in forums, but I’ve now stopped taking part in any discussions because it’s often too time-consuming. The first-person shooter S.T.A.L.K.E.R., of course, I’m not only familiar with it, I’ve also played it through to the end.

“Apocalypse”: “Chernobyl in the not too distant future. The old power plant still lies in the middle of the Exclusion Zone that is a mystery to all of humanity. It is an area of terror in which mutants wreak havoc and the existing laws of nature are suspended. But also a place that attracts fortune hunters from all over the world who smell big money here. Most of these stalkers only care about searching the zone for artifacts to sell to the highest bidder. But among them are two men who want more. David Rothe and Alexander Marinin are determined to unravel the mystery of the Zone. Against all odds, they make their way to the old power plant, but it is a hard path, full of death and danger, at the end of which bitter realizations await...”

[GSC-Fan]: Did you make a proposal for Russia to publish your fiction books?

[Bernd Frenz]: So far no Russian publisher has shown any interest in my other novels, but of course I would be happy if the “Blood Orcs” were translated into foreign languages. Maybe that will happen over the next few years.

[GSC-Fan]: What is your opinion on current fiction?

[Bernd Frenz]: I find it more diverse and varied than ever before. In the past, West Germany (apart from a few exceptions like Arkady and Boris Strugatsky) mostly read fiction from the USA, but a very strong scene of its own has now developed, and authors from other countries are also increasingly being featured. Russian authors such as Sergei Lukyanenko and Dmitry Glukhovsky are currently very successful here.

[GSC-Fan]: At the end of the interview, would you like to say a few words and wishes to the fiction lovers and the fans of the game S.T.A.L.K.E.R. in CIS?

[Bernd Frenz]: I would especially like to thank you for this interview, which I really enjoyed. Of course, I hope that the novels “Death Zone”, “Inferno” and “Apocalypse” will be published in the CIS at some point (and that they will then be just as successful as the novels of their Russian colleagues in Germany :)). But I still wish all S.T.A.L.K.E.R. fans a lot of joy, regardless of whether it is with the game or one of the numerous novels.

Mr. Frenz! Thank you for the time you gave us for the interesting conversation. We wish you continued success and inexhaustible enthusiasm!

The author thanks:

• Oleg Yavorsky and Andriyash Kozlovsky for help in organizing the interview and support,
  
• Eric T. Schaffrath for help with English translation from German.

The article uses photos by col.race from the forum Phantastik Literatur[phantastik-literatur.de].
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