Cholewa, Michał
Entry updated 18 February 2026. Tagged: Author.
(1980- ) Polish author and computer scientist, son of the prominent translator of Fantastika Piotr W Cholewa; both are active members of Polish Fandom. He is known primarily for his series Algorytm Wojny ["The Algorithm of War"], regarded as a leading example of Polish Military SF Space Opera.
Cholewa began to publish work of genre interest with the story "Studnia" ["The Well"] in the online magazine Esensja for 26 September 2007, a Hard-Sf tale in which a rescue Spaceship approaches a warship stranded near a Black Hole, only to discover that its crew has long been dead, their apparent activity a relativistic illusion caused by extreme time dilation (see Relativity). His first print appearance was "Ognisko 11" ["Outbreak 11"] in Epidemie i zarazy ["Epidemics and Plagues"] (anth 2008), depicting a quarantined City facing annihilation in a lethal epidemic (see Pandemic), where military authorities secretly evacuate only a small, prioritized group of civilians, mostly children. The story's tension lies not in the virus but in the bureaucratic calculus that transforms compassion into logistics, and the Psychological cost of obedience under extreme utilitarian logic.
He has since contributed stories to magazines such as Science Fiction and Nowa Fantastyka, as well as further anthologies. "Ucieczka" ["The Escape"] (31 December 2021 Fahrenheit web) and "Na granicy" ["At the Border"] (31 Dec 2022 Fahrenheit web), won Janusz A Zajdel Awards in the short fiction category. The former exposes how authoritarian power normalizes repression through propaganda and ritual, narrated through the eyes of a child witnessing the gradual militarization of everyday life in his mining colony (see Colonization of Other Worlds), as social unrest, religious revivalism, and state violence spread through his community, culminating in the arrest of his father and the collapse of familial security. The latter is a fantasy story, following a mercenary company unwittingly drawn into a rebellion on a contested frontier, framing Magic not as wonder but as an inhuman force that erodes agency and forecloses ethical choice.
His main work is the Military SF Algorytm Wojny ["The Algorithm of War"] series (2012-2023), consisting of eight volumes to date [see Checklist below]. Incorrectly marketed by its publisher as Poland's longest sf series (see, for example, the bibliographies of Rafał Kosik, Jacek Piekara, or Andrzej Pilipiuk), it is, nonetheless, as of 2026, arguably Poland's longest space-bound sf series. The Cholewa series notably includes Forta ["The Trump"] (2014), about a stranded military unit uncovering a mysterious threat on a long-isolated colony world, which won a Janusz A Zajdel Award for best novel. Set in a war-torn future after a catastrophic AI uprising, the series explores the aftermath of a global technological collapse (see Post-Holocaust) and humanity's rebuilding efforts. The premise shares notable conceptual parallels with the transhumanist RPG setting Eclipse Phase (2009 onward), though Cholewa's narrative remains more firmly grounded in hard military SF and large-scale interstellar strategy rather than the body-swapping, Singularity-focused, and horror-infused conspiracy play of Eclipse Phase. (The Cholewa universe is to have its own role-playing game titled Echa, to be released in 2026).
Algorytm Wojny storylines typically portray power struggles among surviving human power blocs – the EU, the USA, and an Asian "Empire" – alongside the residual agency of artificial intelligences. Distinctively European and even more Polish in outlook, the series departs from the American-centric paradigm dominant in Anglophone military sf (as in David Drake, William H Keith Jr, John Ringo or David Weber), presenting a multipolar future in which no faction enjoys unquestioned moral or technological supremacy; its EU-focused protagonists embody Central/Eastern European traditions of historical resilience and skepticism toward grand ideologies, decentreing the US as default hegemon, and questioning the exceptionalist heroism or manifest-destiny rhetoric common in US-focused works. The positioning of the Asian "Empire" as the main antagonist of the later volumes recalls the Yellow Peril trope through its framing of an aggressive, expansionist Eastern power as the gravest long-term threat to the Western civilization, although Cholewa grounds the Empire's success in discipline, strategic adaptation and superior long-term planning rather than simplistic villainy, and introduces moral ambiguity by portraying its authoritarian pragmatism and deep integration with loyal AIs as a potentially more sustainable model for post-human survival.
Four of Cholewa's stories have been made available in English in Echoes of the Other Worlds (coll 2024), including "Na granicy" and "Nauka w służbie" (October 2011 Science Fiction); the latter had already been translated by Artur Nawrot as "Science in the Service" (November 2016 Smokopolitan #7). [PKo]
Michał Cholewa
born Katowice, Poland: 24 December 1980
works
series
Algorytm Wojny ["The Algorithm of War"]
- Gambit (Ustroń, Poland: Enderr, 2012) [Algorytm Wojny: pb/]
- Punkt cięcia ["Cutting Point"] (Ustroń, Poland: Ender, 2013) [Algorytm Wojny: pb/]
- Forta ["The Trump"] (Ustroń, Poland: War Book, 2014) [Algorytm Wojny: pb/Joanna Wolska]
- Inwit ["Conscience"] (Ustroń, Poland: War Book, 2016) [Algorytm Wojny: pb/Grzegorz Bobrowski]
- Echa ["Echoes"] (coll Ustroń, Poland: War Book, 2017) [coll: Algorytm Wojny: pb/Jan Jasiński]
- Sente ["Sente"] (Ustroń, Poland: War Book, 2018) [Algorytm Wojny: pb/Tomasz Tworek]
- Dzika karta ["Wild Card"] (Ustroń, Poland: War Book, 2020) [Algorytm Wojny: pb/Jan Jasiński]
- Gra o sumie niezerowej ["Non-Zero-Sum Game"] (Ustroń, Poland: War Book, 2023) [Algorytm Wojny: pb/Jan Jasiński]
collections
- Echoes of the Other Worlds (Ustroń, Poland: War Book, 2024) [coll: ebook: na/]
links
previous versions of this entry