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Kołodziejczak, Tomasz

Entry updated 14 July 2025. Tagged: Author, Comics, Editor, Game.

(1967-    ) Polish author of Fantastika; also a screenwriter, publisher, and editor of books, Comics, and Role-Playing Games.

He debuted at age 17 with the serialized short story "Kukiełki" ["Rag Dolls"] (22-29 September 1985 Przegląd Techniczny #38-#39) and quickly became active in Polish sf Fandom, organizing fan Conventions and co-founding a Fanzine in the late 1980s. His first novel, Wybierz swoją śmierć, [Choose Your Own Death] (1990), is an sf adventure in which a group of humans are stranded on an alien planet in the twenty-fourth century and become intended sacrifices to local gods, prompting the survivors to fight back for their freedom.

Subsequently Kołodziejczak turned to Fantasy, writing one of the first Polish RPG tie-in stories (for the Polish fantasy RPG, Kryształy czasu ["The Crystals of Time"]), "Bardzo cenny pierścień" ["A Very Precious Ring"] (May 1993 Magia i Miecz). He followed up with two fantasy novels. Krew i kamień ["Blood and the Stone"] (1994) is set in a realm whose people neither use metal nor know of horses, yet manage to build Cities, equip armies, and wage war under the sway of primordial elemental Magic and harsh tribal law. A few years later, he published another fantasy novel, the humorous Przygody rycerza Darlana ["Adventures of Darlan the Knight"] (1997).

Kołodziejczak's breakout success came with his return to sf, Kolory sztandarów [The Colours of the Banners] (1996), the first novel in his Dominium Solarne ["Solar Dominion"] series. Set in the Far Future, it depicts the frontier colony world Gladius struggling to maintain its independence from the vast galactic human empire (the Solar Dominion) ruled by a collective Computer/AI intelligence known as the Network of Minds. When the planet is suddenly attacked by mysterious, hyper-advanced aliens aiming to eradicate its human colonists, the locals find themselves caught between a genocidal external invader and the "protective" tyranny of the Dominion. The main protagonist of the novel is a roving judge-executioner, Daniel Bondaree, bearing an uncanny resemblance to Judge Dredd. Kołodziejczak's mix of Space Opera with Cyberpunk and political thriller elements was praised for its intricate world-building and fast-paced plot, and earned him the 1996 Janusz A Zajdel Award. The novel was not Kołodziejczak's first instalment in that series, which had opened with the short story "Lotniarz" ["Flyer"] (April 1992 Voyager), and was expanded in other shorts, including three in his Wrócę do ciebie, kacie ["I Will Return To You, Executioner"] (coll 1995). In that collection, the titular story "Wrócę do ciebie, kacie" (April 1994 Fenix), a dark sf tale of revenge, was particularly well received. That story successfully mixed elements of Hard SF and classic Fantasy. The executioner, a representative of medieval law, carrying his trademark great sword, co-exists with a world saturated with Technology, where Cyberspace and Virtual Reality are indistinguishable from reality, genetic manipulation is treated as a cosmetic procedure, and, as the title explicitly suggests, vendettas can reach from beyond the grave.

The Solar Dominion saga continued in Schwytany w światła ["Caught in the Lights"] (1999). Picking up after the events of Kolory sztandarów, Gladius, subjugated by the Dominion and ravaged by the alien incursion, has become a post-apocalyptic (End of the World) wasteland. The novel finds Daniel Bondaree branded a rebel and imprisoned, then released only to become the target of multiple factions, as he comes into possession of perilous knowledge that both the Dominion's agents and the aliens are desperate to obtain, leading to a chase across star systems. Kołodziejczak uses this setup to explore themes of information as the ultimate Weapon and the moral ambiguity of whether the de facto Slavery offered by the tyrannical Dominium Solarne is a lesser evil than the extinction brought by the aliens. Both Kolory sztandarów and Schwytany w światła are considered landmark works of Polish space opera, praised for their meticulous detail and imaginative scope; the Dominium Solarne universe features cybernetically enhanced Posthumans, Virtual Reality cults, planetary war campaigns fought in milliseconds, and other tropes of Cyberpunk, Hard SF, Military SF and Space Opera. The last instalment in the series was the semi-omnibus Głowobójcy ["Headkillers"] (coll 2011), collecting all six of his short stories set in this universe, as well as his choose-your-own-path Gamebook Rzeźbiarze Pierścieni ["Ring Sculptors"] (1995) (which in 2024 was adapted into a Videogame for Nintendo Switch as Ring Sculptors). The game's protagonist is a castaway who, after years of drifting through space in hibernation, is saved by the titular Ring Sculptors, an order of space-faring artist monks that literally creates sculptures in planetary rings; they task the game protagonist with a mission to investigate one of their outposts, with which contact was recently lost.

Around that time, Kołodziejczak also developed his own RPG system, Strefa śmierci ["Death Zone"] (January 1995 Magia i Miecz), also set in the Dominium Solarne universe, and notable for being the first sf tabletop RPG to gain significant popularity in Poland, denting the near-monopoly that fantasy systems had over that hobby in Poland until that time. Most of the Strefa śmierci content – rules, adventure, and setting – was published in the Polish RPG magazine, Magia i Miecz, in 1995. The game is set on planet Ariadna, devastated after it tried to stand up against the Dominion; in the aftermath of a pyrrhic victory it became a post-apocalyptic wasteland, nearly cut off from the outside universe, where adventurers look for rare artefacts – reminiscent of the concept introduced by the Strugatski brothers in their Roadside Picnic (1972; trans 1977). This completes the Solar Dominion universe: in an interview in 2011 Kołodziejczak stated he has no plans to return to it.

After a decade's hiatus from novels, Kołodziejczak returned with a new saga in the 2010s. The Ostatnia Rzeczpospolita ["Last Commonwealth"] series is a gripping fusion of science fiction, dark fantasy, and horror, rooted deeply in Polish national mythology and notable for its unabashed use of Polish historical, messianist, and patriotic imagery. Kołodziejczak's Last Commonwealth universe is set in a Near Future timeline, where malevolent entities from another reality (demonic Aliens coming from the infernal dimension of Gehenna) – wielding both magic and highly advanced technology – have invaded Earth, rapidly conquering most of the globe. In this apocalyptic scenario, the physical laws mutate, as magic twists our reality (in the parts overrun by the invaders, modern technology becomes unreliable, and even the geography of the world changes). Only cultures able to harness large-scale magic drawing on national myths and identities have survived. The remaining human enclaves, allied with Elvish forces (de facto another group of aliens, but benevolent), try to withstand the alien invasion. Poland, reconstituted as the monarch (the titular Last Commonwealth; a reference to the era of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth), emerges, alongside the USA, as one of the last bastions of resistance, surviving by clinging to its old-fashioned traditions encapsulated in the motto "Bóg, Honor, Ojczyzna" ["God, Honor, Fatherland"]; the US is implied to have weathered the Alien onslaught by its steadfast rally alongside American values such as democracy (American "magic" is related, for example, to the magic ritual tied to the presidential elections).

Kołodziejczak first explored this world through short stories – many collected in Czerwona mgła ["Red Mist"] (coll 2012 coll) – then launched his main narrative with Czarny horyzont ["Black Horizon"] (2010). Most of the stories from the Czerwona Mgła take place on the Commonwealth's East borderlands, reskinning classic fantasy tropes and reinterpreting the Polish nationalistic dream of regaining the territories and the prestige lost centuries ago to Russia. In Kołodziejczak's universe, the demonic Aliens that manifested in the East and overran Russia tellingly took the form of barbaric Tolkienesque orc hordes (and to some degree, the eerie parallels to modern geopolitical developments make the story even more relevant now than a decade ago). The stories of the first book follow Kajetan Kłobucki, a mage and a special operations emissary of the Polish crown, tasked with investigating the titular red mist, capable of transforming humans into Monsters. In Czarny horyzont, Kłobucki now ventures into enemy-held territory in the West on a clandestine mission. To gather vital intelligence, he must cross the eponymous "black horizons" – zones of otherworldly reality – behind which the demonic occupiers lurk, ruling over enslaved and brainwashed humans, on whose psychological misery and agony they feed. Here, again, some telling historical parallels can be observed, this time to Holocaust Fiction, as the Aliens that overrun Western Europe, called Barlogs, are turning it into a gigantic, monstrous concentration camp; and to drive that point home, their soldiers include swastika-sporting jaeger-knights. Having explored the going-ons on Poland Eastern and Western frontiers, the series' second novel, Biała Reduta, tom 1 ["White Redoubt, Part 1"] (2014), broadens the scope to the beleaguered human (primarily American) colony on Mars, established before the invasion. The colony, while struggling for supplies, was unaffected by the reality-warping Disaster that befell Earth, as it was unnoticed by the interdimensional invaders, who had difficulties understanding the structure of our reality (such as the very concept of space travel). Decades later, as the Earth-born colonists began to pass away from old age, the Mars-born youth are increasingly doubtful of the need to maintain the magical fortifications mandated by distant Earth authorities. Seeing them as wasteful superstition, a rebel group begins dismantling them just as the first supply mission from Earth arrives in decades – infected with an alien virus. The novel explores the themes of generational Amnesia and the folly of youth, as through the actions of well-meaning reformists and revolutionaries ("useful idiots", to draw another historical parallel), Mars transforms from humanity's final refuge to another front of the alien invasion, mirroring Earth's hubris.

The universe of the Last Commonwealth aptly mixes swords with automatic rifles, runic spells with satellites, and holy relics with bombs, entertainingly dramatizing the collision of magic and modernity. In this, Kołodziejczak's universe is also reminiscent of the Shadowrun universe, or the dark future hinted in it (in the context of the near-future world mixing magic and sf tropes, threatened by the invasion of aliens feeding on negative emotions). Critics have noted the series' unique blending of genres and influences: as the Nowa Fantastyka (see Fantastyka) editor Jerzy Rzymowski observed, Kołodziejczak combines the wide-angle cosmic imagination of Dan Simmons's Hyperion Cantos with Tolkienesque nomenclature, all firmly grounded in Poland's religious and patriotic traditions; the adversaries, whether black or red, take on "literally demonic" form as avatars of history's totalitarian evils. Not all is dark and gloomy, however; in one memorable scene from "Klucz przejścia" ["Key of Passage"] (2002 Click #3) Kołodziejczak even finds room for Humour, noting that elven-made satellites crafted from wood and runes actually function, much to the dismay of NASA engineers. This ambitious mosaic of themes has positioned Ostatnia Rzeczpospolita as a one-of-a-kind contribution to Polish speculative fiction. Unfortunately, as of 2025, Part 2 of Biała Reduta has yet to appear, leaving the Last Commonwealth saga tantalizingly incomplete. So far, Kołodziejczak has returned to this universe only once, with the short story "Kropki na mapie" ["Dots on the Map"] (in Skaza na niebie ["Blemish in the Sky"], coll 2021).

Besides novels and cycle collections, Kołodziejczak has written numerous short stories that garnered awards and showcase his range across sf, fantasy, and Horror, such as his "Wstań i idź" ["Rise and Go"] (June 1992 Fenix), sometimes seen as belonging to the Polish Klerykal Fiction genre; a Dystopian satire set in a grotesquely consumerist future America – a "McDonaldized" society where abortion and euthanasia are disturbingly ubiquitous. Kołodziejczak's shorter fiction frequently explores themes of resistance against oppression (political or supernatural), the clash of civilizations, and the moral burdens of war – reflecting the same preoccupations as his novels on a more compact scale. Many of these stories have been reprinted in his collections Wstań i idź ["Rise and Go"] (coll 2015) and Skaza na niebie ["Blemish in the Sky"] (coll 2021).

While Biała Reduta from 2014 remains his last novel (as of 2025) Kołodziejczak still publishes shorter works, if sporadically. His most recent work is the short sf story "Jeszcze nie dziś" ["Not Yet Today"] (in Ku gwiazdom 2024 ["To the Stars 2024"] anth 2024). It is a blend of conspiracy thriller, AI cautionary tale, and metafictional commentary on the role of speculative fiction. In the story, an sf writer meets a stranger who tells him a conspiracy theory about the ongoing AI takeover of the world, and begs him to spread the truth about it in the form of a SF story, since only this genre can evade AI's censorship.

In addition to prose, Kołodziejczak has been an influential figure in Polish fantastika fan culture, as well as the Comics industry. He was one of the members of the "Klub Tfurców" [roughly translatable as ­Kreators' Club] group. In the early 1990s he was a publisher and editor for the Voyager sf magazine (1991-1994) and, briefly in early 1995, the editor of the Magia i Miecz RPG magazine. His short stories, essays, and reviews appeared in Fenix, Nowa Fantastyka (see Fantastyka), Science Fiction and others. More recently, he has also hosted or co-hosted several Polish-language YouTube channels about fantastika.

Since 1995 Kołodziejczak has been an editor for Egmont Poland, where he oversaw popular comics periodicals (Kaczor Donald among them) for over two decades. He wrote scripts for a number of comics, including the all-ages fantasy graphic novel Darlan i Horwazy – Złoty Kur ["Darlan and Horwazy: The Golden Hen"] (graph 2008), a fairy-tale adventure drawn by Krzysztof Kope. He also ventured into mainstream comics, writing one-off stories for international icons: in 2006 he wrote a script for The Walt Disney Company's Uncle Scrooge comic. Closer to sf, he also scripted the Polish-themed chapters in DC Comics' global anthologies: "Defender of the City" in Batman: The World (graph 2021) and "The Royal Jester" in Joker: The World (graph 2024). His longstanding involvement with comics publishing led to multiple honours such as the Papcio Chmiel Award and Janusz Christa Award for his service to Polish comics.

Kołodziejczak was also co-scriptwriter with Terry Dowling for the sf videogame Schizm: Mysterious Journey (2001). For his activities, he is also a multiple winner of the Śląkfa Award (the oldest Polish science fiction and fantasy award, presented by the Silesian Fantastika Club since 1983): in 1991 as Publisher of the Year for co-editing Voyager, in 1995 as Fan of the Year for his activity as an event organizer, and in 2002 as Publisher of the Year for his role in expanding comics readership. In the 2010s, the Polish government honoured him with the Badge of Merit to Culture (2010) and the Gold Cross of Merit (2013) for his contributions to literature and for "nurturing the memory of Poland's recent history".

Aside from his above-mentioned English-language comics and videogames, two of Kołodziejczak's literary pieces have been translated into English. In 2000 excerpts of his novel Kolory sztandarów were translated by Małgorzata Wilk as "The Colours of the Banners" in Chosen by Fate: Zajdel Award Winners Anthology (anth 2000 anth), A decade later the story "Klucz przejścia" ["Key of Passage"] was translated by Michael Kandel for A Polish Book of Monsters (anth2010). His works have also been translated into Czech, Lithuanian, Hungarian, and Russian. [PKo]

Tomasz Kołodziejczak

born Warsaw, Poland: 13 October 1967

works

series

Dominium Solarne

  • Kolory sztandarów ["The Colours of the Banners"] (Warsaw, Poland: Supernowa, 1996) [Dominium Solarne: pb/]
  • Schwytany w światła ["Caught in the Lights"] (Warsaw, Poland: Supernowa, 1999) [Dominium Solarne: pb/]
  • Głowobójcy ["Headkillers"] (Lublin, Poland: Fabryka Słów, 2011) [coll: Dominium Solarne: pb/]

Ostatnia Rzeczpospolita

  • Czarny horyzont ["Black Horizon"] (Lublin, Poland: Fabryka Słów, 2010) [Ostatnia Rzeczpospolita: pb/]
  • Czerwona mgła ["Red Mist"] (Lublin, Poland: Fabryka Słów, 2012) [coll: Ostatnia Rzeczpospolita: pb/]
  • Biała Reduta, tom 1 ["White Redoubt, Part 1"] (Lublin, Poland: Fabryka Słów, 2014) [Ostatnia Rzeczpospolita: pb/]

individual titles

collections and stories

  • Wrócę do ciebie, kacie ["I Will Return To You, Executioner"] (Warszawa: Wydawnictwo S.R., 1995) [coll: pb/]
  • Wstań i idź ["Rise and Go"] (Lublin, Poland: Fabryka Słów, 2015) [coll: pb/]
  • Skaza na niebie ["Blemish in the Sky"] (Lublin, Poland: Fabryka Słów, 2021) [coll: pb/]

works as editor

links

previous versions of this entry



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