Grzędowicz, Jarosław
Entry updated 13 October 2025. Tagged: Author.
(1965- ) Polish writer, editor, and translator who debuted in 1982 with two short stories in the regional literary magazine Odgłosy. The first was the sf "Azyl dla starych pilotów" ["Asylum for Old Pilots"], about a retired astronaut; the second was "Twierdza trzech studni" ["A Fortress of Three Wells"], considered to be the first Polish work in the fantasy genre, although it arguably has some sf elements and could be termed Science Fantasy (see also Equipoise).
Grzędowicz was involved in the Polish "Klub Tfurców" [roughly translatable as Kreators' Club], a society of Polish Speculative Fiction/Fantastika writers. He was not very prolific over the next two decades, during which he published only short stories and was arguably more active as an editor, having co-founded the Polish sf magazine Fenix, for which he was chief editor from 1993 until its closure in 2001. As the prominent Polish literary critic Maciej Parowski put it, Grzędowicz had to "lose his magazine to be reborn as a writer". Indeed, the next decade was the most prolific in Grzędowicz career.
2003 saw his book debut with the short story collection Księga jesiennych demonów ["The Book of Autumn Demons"] (coll 2003), whose genre is essentially contemporary Horror, with stories of various individuals who have an encounter with the supernatural that at first seems to bring a solution to their troubles, only to turn in a more sinister direction. The horror elements in Grzędowicz's works, exemplified here but recurring elsewhere, generally tend to be psychological, rather than physical, featuring themes of temptation, mental breakdown, and despair rather than gore.
2005 saw the publication of his magnum opus – the first volume of his four-part Pan Lodowego Ogrodu ["The Lord of the Ice Garden"] (2005). As Grzędowicz insists, this is just a single gigantic novel, not a series or a cycle. Successive parts II, III and IV were published in 2007, 2009 and 2012; in total, the work is approximately 2,500 pages long. The first part took the Polish fantastika scene by storm. Part I received the most prestigious Polish literary honour for fantastika, the Janusz A Zajdel Award; the work as a whole collected virtually all the other notable Polish fantastika awards (Nautilus Award and Sfinks Award, the latter twice) except the Jerzy Żuławski Literary Award (for which it was however nominated three times). While most reviewers and critics consider Part I the best, Pan Lodowego Ogrodu as a whole has been recognized as one of the finest works of Polish fantastika since Andrzej Sapkowski's The Witcher series. While on the surface it is fantasy, the concept of equipoise must be invoked, as it is a multi-genre work described by scholars and critics as belonging to science fantasy, Technofantasy, social sf, Planetary Romance, New Weird, Dystopian or Postmodernist fiction. It is a story of First Contact, set in the Near Future when humans discover an Alien civilization. The alien society resembles medieval human societies, but with a significant twist – Magic exists there. After contact is lost with the scientific team sent to carefully survey the world (see Prime Directive), a black-ops rescue is authorized, with a single commando tasked with assessing the situation and retrieving the missing Scientists by any means necessary. What develops is a highly entertaining take on the Hero's journey, with two narrative viewpoints: that of the sarcastic Earthling commando, Vuko Drakkainen, and that of a local youth, a deposed prince. Vuko quickly realizes that the survivors of the human scientific expeditions have not only mastered magic but become de facto demigods, each trying to realize their vision of a perfect society (see Utopia). Meanwhile, the local gods (see Gods and Demons) are not happy with the newly arrived competition, and start to plan an End of the World scenario ...
2005 also saw the publication of his short story "Wilcza zamieć" ["Wolf Blizzard"] (in Deszcze niespokojne ["Restless Rains"], anth 2005). This is set on a World War Two U-boat tasked with contacting the Norse gods; there is a Lovecraftian atmosphere (see H P Lovecraft) and the tale can be seen as a spiritual prequel to David Brin's "Thor Meets Captain America" (in The River of Time coll 1986). It also brought Grzędowicz a Zajdel Award in the best short story category, making him the first author to win that award in both categories in the same year (Robert M Wegner would go on to beat Grzędowicz's record, taking both prizes in 2012 and 2015).
Grzędowicz's next novel was Popiół i kurz ["Ash and Dust"] (2006); this is similar in tone to his horror collection and arguably belongs to the urban fantasy genre. The modern-day protagonist can travel to In-Between, a borderland between our world and the presumed afterlife, where he deals with various plots and intrigues. This also won the Zajdel Award for its year.
His second collection – Wypychacz zwierząt ["Animal Stuffer"] (2008), assembling older short stories – was followed by a decade later by Azyl ["Asylum"] (coll 2017). That year also saw the publication of the novel Hel 3 ["Helium-3"] (2017), arguably the most science-fictional work in Grzędowicz's repertoire, a Near Future Cyberpunk story with elements of Military SF and horror, about a social media journalist/influencer who becomes involved in an intrigue involving the titular resource on the Moon.
Grzędowicz was married to a fellow and arguably more prolific fantastika writer, Maja Lidia Kossakowska, who authored 20 novels before tragically passing away in a fire in 2022.
His works have been translated into Czech, Russian and Belarusian; as of 2025 there is no English translation of his work; but a Videogame based on Pan Lodoweg Ogrodu is scheduled for release in the near future; it is hoped this will lead to his work being translated into English (as happened to Andrzej Sapkowski, following the success of videogames inspired by his novels). [PKo]
Jarosław Grzędowicz
born Wrocław, Poland: 3 May 1965
works
Pan Lodowego Ogrodu
- Pan Lodowego Ogrodu T.1 ["The Lord of the Ice Garden Volume 1"] (Lublin, Poland: Fabryka Słów, 2005) [Pan Lodowego Ogrodu: pb/]
- Pan Lodowego Ogrodu T.2 ["The Lord of the Ice Garden Volume 2"] (Lublin, Poland: Fabryka Słów, 2007) [Pan Lodowego Ogrodu: pb/]
- Pan Lodowego Ogrodu T.3 ["The Lord of the Ice Garden Volume 3"] (Lublin, Poland: Fabryka Słów, 2009) [Pan Lodowego Ogrodu: pb/]
- Pan Lodowego Ogrodu T.4 ["The Lord of the Ice Garden Volume 4"] (Lublin, Poland: Fabryka Słów, 2012) [Pan Lodowego Ogrodu: pb/]
individual titles
- Popiół i kurz ["Ash and Dust"] (Lublin, Poland: Fabryka Słów, 2006) [pb/]
- Hel 3 ["Helium-3"] (Lublin, Poland: Fabryka Słów, 2017) [pb/]
collections
- Księga jesiennych demonów ["The Book of Autumn Demons"] (Lublin, Poland: Fabryka Słów, 2003) [coll: pb/]
- Wypychacz zwierząt ("Animal Stuffer") (Lublin, Poland: Fabryka Słów, 2008) [coll: pb/]
- Azyl ("Asylum") (Lublin, Poland: Fabryka Słów, 2017) [coll: pb/]
links
previous versions of this entry