The Otherland, Berlin's famous book store for science fiction, fantasy and horror, was founded in 1998 by Hannes Riffel and Birgit Herden under the name "UFO". The name was changed in 2006, and they withdrew from the business in 2013. Since then it has been led by longtime staff members Jakob Schmidt, Wolfgang Tress and Simon Weinert.
We offer a broad selection of literature in the genres of science fiction, fantasy and horror, in German and English, but also have small sections for younger reader as well as graphic novels and role playing material, and lots of other stuff to delight the genre fan - Game Of Thrones cups and cuddly Jabba the Hutt toys, for example.
The Otherland does not just sell books, we also serve as a venue to meet and hear genre authors. We have regular readings - with international guests such as Joe Abercrombie, Peter Watts, Kim Stanley Robinson, Ann Leckie and Tad Williams (the inventor of our name) and with German authors such as Boris Koch (who worked in the Otherland himself for many years), Dietmar Dath and Tobias O. Meißner. Even Terry Pratchett and George R.R. Martin visited the UFO back in the day.
Other than that, we offer the opportunity to chat about genre matters in our monthly "Gatherland" (every third Thursday of the month), invite you to join our monthly open role-playing session (every firt Thursday of the month) and offer space to several english- speaking book clubs which regularly meet at our shop.
Our shop is located at the beautiful Bergmannstraße in the middle of Kreuzberg, with many adjacent shops and cafes.
We (and our team) are looking forward to your visit!
