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Lewandowski, Konrad T

Entry updated 6 October 2025. Tagged: Author.

(1966-    ) Polish philosopher, journalist and prolific author active since the early 1990s in Polish Fandom and online discussion, often using the pseudonym Przewodas. A graduate of the chemistry department at Warsaw's Polytechnic, who later earned a PhD in philosophy, Lewandowski is best known for his Fantastika, although his portfolio also includes a five-volume criminal saga. Fantastika includes a popular six-volume Kotołak ["Werecat"] Sword and Sorcery saga, the Diabłu ogarek ["The Devil's Stump"] trilogy mixing Polish history with Fantasy, and a number of sf works. Most of the latter are politically charged Satires, often featuring Alternate History themes.

Lewandowski's work – often blending gonzo satire with genre tropes – reflects a conservative scepticism toward political correctness and liberal elites. While more often than not aligned with the Polish conservative and right wing ideals, it also departs from them in one significant dimension, occasionally questioning Christianity while promoting Slavic Native Faith, a new religious movement to which Lewandowski adheres (see also Klerykal Fiction).

Lewandowski debuted in 1991 with fantasy-themed works – the short story "Wisielica" ["Hangwoman"] (April 1991 Nowa Fantastyka) and the first book in his Kotołak ["Werecat"] saga, Ksin (1991). A few short stories, published in Nowa Fantastyka, Fenix, some short Comic book stories (mostly published in the magazine Świat Młodych), and various anthologies followed. In 1995 he published another fantasy novel, Most nad Otchłanią ["Bridge over the Abyss"] (1995), but more importantly, that year he also won the Janusz A Zajdel Award as well as the Sfinks Award for the short story "Noteka 2015" (April 1995 Nowa Fantastyka; trans by Brunon Stefanski and Krzysztof Bartnicki in Chosen by Fate: Zajdel Award Winners Anthology anth 2000). This remains his most widely known and arguably best work to date, sf or otherwise,. Written on the eve of Polish entry into NATO, and amidst discussion on whether Poland should join the EU, it is a satirical and provocative work of Alternate History with a Military SF twist, set in a Near Future Poland beset by geopolitical crisis and internal collapse. After the revelation that two-thirds of Polish MPs are on the payroll of the Russian mafia, the President dissolves parliament. In retaliation, under the terms of a secret US-Russian treaty, the United States launches a military intervention in Poland under the Orwellian codename "Call of Democracy". The story's unlikely hero is Radosław Tomaszewski, a cynical journalist working for a trashy tabloid, who saves the nation by devising a military strategy based on chaos theory – what he calls the "tactic of the swarm" – which the Polish military adopts to defeat technologically superior American forces. Both hilarious and politically barbed, mixes Absurdist satire with tactical speculation, poking at Western hypocrisy (referencing the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and the subsequent abandonment of Poland by the Western Allies after World War Two), the fragility of democratic institutions, and Poland's historic distrust of foreign alliances. Beneath the absurdity lies a sharp critique of NATO-era geopolitics and post-Soviet vulnerabilities, as well as a patriotic fantasy of national agency and resilience. Among fans of military sf in Poland, the story has been also recognized as an early exploration of hybrid warfare and decentralized defense theory, and, as affirmed by the Zajdel trophy, one of the most significant Polish sf stories of the 1990s.

Radosław Tomaszewski, hero of "Noteka 2015", is Lewandowski's signature creation, appearing in over a dozen linked stories (gathered in two collections) and two novels, serving as a vehicle for dark if humorous Satire of contemporary Poland. This Radosław Tomaszewski sequence began with short stories, of which "Noteka 2015" was the second. The first was "Pacykarz" ["Daubster"] (March 1994 Nowa Fantastyka), and the last to date is Złota kaczka ["Golden Duck"] (2020). These works have sketched divergent Near-Futures (see Multiverse; Parallel Worlds) in which Poland's political and social conflicts play out to absurd extremes. "Pacykarz" is a bleak, surreal and unsettling short story in which thousands are massacred at Warsaw Central Station and grotesquely rearranged into a "living mural" by an anonymous artist-terrorist. The story satirizes media sensationalism and the commodification of Horror, as the atrocity is quickly aestheticized and commercialized. With no clear motive or culprit, the event becomes a cultural spectacle, evoking early J G Ballard in its fusion of violence, art, and moral void. In the longer Złota kaczka, Tomaszewski confronts the "possible results of the contemporary 'Polish-Polish war'" of ideologies. As the titular Golden Duck, a character from Polish folklore, manifests on a Warsaw street, realities intermingle. To restore the status quo, Tomaszewski embarks on a journey through alternate realities, while being chased by Nazi commandos. Along the way Lewandowski satirically posits worlds where right-wing dreams (or nightmares) come true, and in which, for example, the "zones of sisterly love" imprison overzealous feminists.

Most of Lewandowski's other sf novels focus on Alternate History, in a somewhat more serious manner. These include Królowa Joanna d'Arc ["Queen Joan of Arc"] (2000), in which the famous heroine, instead of being martyred, finds refuge in Poland and eventually becomes the country's queen. His next book was more ambitious: Misja "Ramzesa Wielkiego" ["Mission of 'Rameses the Great'"] (2001) also tackles alternate history, but this time mixed with Space Opera and Military SF. The story is set in a reality where Ancient Egypt became the dominant world power: in that universe, by the twenty-first century, Egypt-led humanity is building an intergalactic empire. Here, modern spacefaring elements collide with Pharaonic empire-building, yielding a pulpishly grandiose tale that tests the boundaries of Alternate-History logic. If Królowa Joanna showed Lewandowski rewriting medieval chronicles, Misja "Ramzesa Wielkiego" finds him rewriting space age Mythology into the past.

He briefly departed from alternate realities with his Czarna psychoza ["Black Psychosis"] (2005), an occult-psychological thriller that blends biochemistry, demonology (see Gods and Demons), fringe science (see Pseudoscience), and esoteric philosophy into a tale of spiritual warfare and global conspiracy. The novel follows an unlikely trio of protagonists who find out that a celebrated Polish psychiatrist secretly serves as a demonic conduit. The book is part demonic thriller, part hallucinogenic satire, and part philosophical diatribe against the rationalist-modernist worldview.

Lewandowski returned to alternate histories with his swashbuckling Trylogia dalekowschodnia ["Far Eastern Trilogy"]. The trilogy follows a Polish officer serving in the Russian Army, Sergiusz Lawendowski, as he adventures across a semi-fictionalized fin-de-siècle Eastern Europe and Central Asia. The first volume, Bursztynowe Królestwo ["Amber Kingdom"] chronicles the founding of a Polish-Chinese Commonwealth after a meeting between Polish and Chinese exiles in Russian-Chinese Far Eastern borderlands. In its middle volume, Afgański Zeus ["Afghan's Zeus"] (2011) the protagonist investigates anomalous radio signals in Afghanistan, encountering a hidden cult and Lost World Steampunkish technologies. The third volume, Bohaterowie się odradzają ["Heroes are Reborn"] (2012), firmly enters Lewandowski's favorite Alternate History territory, featuring a military conflict between the Russian Empire and a Commonwealth. The series is reminiscent of works by Harry Turtledove or S M Stirling, albeit filtered through Polish imperial nostalgia and a boy's-own-adventure lens.

In 2011 he published a religiously charged urban fantasy, Anioły muszą odejść ["Angels Must Go"] (2011), that brings his signature irreverence and satirical bite to bear on a metaphysical crisis brewing in contemporary Warsaw. Drawing inspiration (and marketing) from Mikhail Bulgakov's Russian classic The Master and Margarita (written 1928-1940 and completed by Bulgakov's wife after his death, 1940-1941; complete text trans Michael Glenny 1967; cut text trans Mirra Ginsburg 1967), the novel imagines a centuries-old curse cast by two dying heretics manifesting in the twenty-first century as demonic possession and Marian apparitions gone awry. Four eccentric angels – ranging from a sixteenth-century hussar to a Marxist atheist bureaucrat – are dispatched by "the Chief" (God) to resolve the crisis by orchestrating an unlikely romance between a Redemptorist priest and a streetwise young woman, echoing the Polish myth of Wars and Sawa. The novel begins as a darkly comic theological thriller, mixing apocryphal satire with horror-tinged scenes of exorcism and historical flashbacks (including, obligatorily, to the Warsaw Uprising), but gradually shifts into an overextended grotesque, bogged down by polemics on Polish religiosity and stereotype-skewering farce. Though uneven and structurally diffuse, it amusingly blends angelic intrigue, postmodern Parody, and a skeptical yet oddly hopeful view of redemption.

Faraon wampirów ["Pharaoh of Vampires"] (2014 ebook), like his previous Anioły muszą odejść, is an eccentric sf retelling, this time of Bolesław Prus's Faraon ["Pharaoh"] (1895; cut text trans Jeremiah Curtin as The Pharaoh and the Priest: An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt 1902; complete text trans by Christopher Kasparek as Pharaoh 2020), reframed as an alternate history fantasy featuring Vampires, undead priesthoods, and apocalyptic intrigues. Instead of a faithful homage, Lewandowski performs radical literary surgery: he preserves much of Prus's original prose and structure but excises the social-didactic content, replacing it with a grotesque vampiric mythology. Here, the political conflict between the young Pharaoh Rameses XIII and the entrenched priestly caste becomes entangled with supernatural forces, as foreign dignitaries (notably Phoenicians and Jews) are revealed to be blood-drinking Immortals. Familiar elements – the solar eclipse, the deaths of Sarah and her child, the ambitions of Herhor – are transformed into horror-fantasy motifs: a demonic daughter that lays eggs after copulation, undead negotiators demanding aristocratic status, and a kingdom teetering between occult theocracy and necrocratic apocalypse. The result is deeply uneven: moments of imaginative flair are undermined by tonal inconsistency, kitsch imagery, and the awkward coexistence of nineteenth-century prose with Pulp horror tropes, making Lewandowski's return to Ancient Egypt more a curiosity than a successful reinvention, inferior to his Misja "Ramzesa Wielkiego" from a decade earlier.

In Orzeł bielszy niż gołębica ["An Eagle Whiter than the Dove"] (2013), Lewandowski returned pointedly to Polish history proper, delivering a full-fledged Steampunk Alternate History. Published as part of a surprising mould-breaking Polish governmental project supporting a series of Counterfactual histories, Orzeł bielszy posits a victorious outcome for the 1863 January Uprising (a Polish uprising against the powers that occupied the country at that time). Here, nineteenth-century Polish rebels succeed in overthrowing Russian rule thanks to an arsenal of kerosene-powered armoured cars and tanks, designed by Polish scientist Ignacy Łukasiewicz (see Invention). The novel's very title and epigraph come from G K Chesterton's poem "Poland," signalling its theme: "an eagle, whiter than a dove" rises, fulfilling a long-dormant national prophecy and even briefly becomes the marvel of the world, ushering in a gleaming age of steam-driven progress. The book offers a bittersweet commentary on the cyclical nature of Polish martyrology, granting a cathartic moment of victory only to observe its erosion. The novel reflects Lewandowski's conservative-nationalist bent: he attributes the uprising's success to the traditional elites (nobles and the bourgeoisie), conspicuously ignoring the thorny issue of peasant serfdom that underpinned the historical failure. This selective Utopianism underscores the author's tendency to seemingly challenge Polish historical myths while ultimately affirming patriotic ideals.

The novella Wysłanniczka bogini ["She-Emissary of the Goddess"] published next year in the collection Utopie ["Utopias"] (coll 2014) is the author's nod towards his Slavic Native Faith. Set in the feudal tumult of 1038 during the Pagan Reaction (a historical uprising of pagans against newly Christianized Poland), it imagines a medieval turning point where the clash between old gods and new could have led to a radically different civilizational path, emphasizing cultural and religious alternatives rather than technological ones – a kind of ethnographic alternate history that resonates with Lewandowski's interest in metaphysical and civilizational themes such as Slavic pagan philosophy.

His most recent stand-alone Fantastika is more of a historical tale, with a few nods to fantasy. Narzeczona z Kociewia ["The Bride from Kociewie"] (2020) is rooted in one of the lesser-known but symbolically rich moments of Polish history: the 1920 plebiscite in the Powiśle region, where the real-life village of Janowo, despite being surrounded by overwhelmingly pro-German sentiment, managed to vote in favor of Poland – a real-life echo of the classic Asterix tale, a small village defying a powerful empire. Lewandowski transforms this episode into a mythic narrative by blending real historical figures and events from across several centuries, with rich elements of Slavic mythology, local folklore, and, of course, plenty of satire.

Overall, Lewandowski's sf output is remarkable for its idiosyncratic range – from farcical multi-world political satires to earnest steampunk reveries – and for its unflinching engagement with Poland's historical obsessions. In a sense, his work bridges two traditions: the sociopolitical satire of Eastern European sf, in the vein of Stanisław Lem's more barbed writings or Janusz Zajdel's dystopias, and international Alternate History (a genre effectively nonexistent in communist Poland, as what-if speculations were seen as too likely to offend the censors by the virtue of presenting worlds where the communist, Russia-friendly Party was not the dominant benevolent power). In the early 1990s, Maciej Parowski saw his work as mixing the traditions of Polish Sociological SF with Technothrillers.

Lewandowski pushes both to extremes. His Tomaszewski tales use Alternate History as a playground for burlesque Satire, merrily deranging contemporary Politics across Parallel Worlds. By contrast, most of his other works takes a more earnest delight in turning points – asking how different Poland's fate (and by extension, Europe's) might have been if, say, a Joan of Arc travelled east, or if fantastical technology empowered nineteenth-century patriots. Throughout, Lewandowski's narratives display a penchant for genre hybridization and a willingness to provoke. His portrayals of Feminist activists, communist officials, or liberal politicians are often gleefully irreverent, courting polemic and critique. Indeed, some accuse him of propagating a reactionary historiography under the guise of sf. Yet others argue that by exaggerating Poland's national myths and fears, Lewandowski plays with them in a perversely clever way – holding up a mirror to his country's psyche. If his alternate histories are "teachers of life" (per the old adage), they teach through stark contrast and irony. And if his satires offend, they do so even-handedly: no one in the Polish spectrum is safe from his lampooning, although by his own admission his works more often than not espouse a conservative, anti-"political correctness" viewpoint.

Lewandowski should also be noted as a controversial figure in Polish Fandom. As early as 1992 he received an anti-award, the 1992 Złoty Meteor ["Golden Meteor"], given to him for a scandalous Convention report. He is still remembered as a vocal critic of the Zajdel Award a decade later, when he publicly quarreled with award committee members and even wrote an open letter to Zajdel's widow, asking for Zajdel's name to be removed from the award. Again, a decade later he engaged in an infamous public feud with several Polish book bloggers, deriding his critics and openly mocking the ensuing backlash. In a related interview, he described himself as a "troll-eater", a combatant who fights trolls with trolling; and he also explained that he intentionally provoked this scandal to draw attention to his works, claiming that as positive reviews of his work get little attention, he engineered a flame-war to attract more notice. This, however, led to some critics and authors calling for a boycott of his books. All of these disputes contributed to an image of Lewandowski as a polarizing enfant terrible of the Polish fantastika community.

Since 2020, Lewandowski's fiction output dropped significantly compared to his earlier prolific career and remains limited, as of 2025, to a single Comic book scenario and a crime novel. His prolific output of short stories (he wrote about three dozen) ended even earlier, circa 2009; he has published only a single short story since then, "Sprzężenie pasożytnicze" ["Parasitic Coupling"] (January 2018 Nowa Fantastyka). This might be explained by an interview he gave in 2013, in which he said that he had "in essence written [his] greatest works already" and felt "fulfilled" as a creator, although some have also suggested that his recurring controversial behavior has finally alienated publishers and readers (this may also explain why, throughout his career, most of his works have been published by various and changing Small Presses).

Though apart from "Noteka 2015" his works are not available in English, Lewandowski's contributions are recognized within Polish fantastika fandom, where, as noted, he is considered somewhat of a controversial figure. His career, running from the fall of Communism into the 2020s, mirrors the evolving concerns of Polish sf – from early transitional anxieties to mature reflections on national identity in a multiverse of possibilities. [PKo]

Konrad T Lewandowski

born Warsaw, Poland: 1 April 1966

works (selected)

series

Kotołak ["Werecat"]

  • Ksin (Warsaw, Poland: Orbita, 1991) [pb/]
    • Kapitan Ksin Fergo ["Captain Ksin Fergo"] (Warsaw, Poland: Copernicus, 2004) [vt of the above: Kotołak: pb/]
  • Różanooka ["Rose-eyed"] (Gdynia, Poland: Victoria, 1992) [Kotołak: pb/]
    • Trop kotołaka ["Trail of the Werecat"] (Warsaw, Poland: S.R., 1998) [omni of the above two plus Ksin Drapieżca below and new short story "Przybysz" ["Visitor"]: Kotołak: pb/]
  • Ksin Drapieżca ["Ksin the Predator"] (Warsaw, Poland: Copernicus, 2003) [Kotołak: pb/]
  • Wyprawa kotołaka ["Ksin's Expedition"] (Warsaw, Poland: Copernicus, 2004) [Kotołak: pb/]
  • Ksin koczownik ["Ksin the Nomad"] ( Warsaw, Poland: Copernicus, 2006) [Kotołak: pb/]

The above sequence was revised, resorted and expanded as follows.

  • Ksin. Początek ["Ksin. Beginning"] (Warsaw, Poland: Nowa Księgarnia, 2015) [Kotołak: pb/]
  • Ksin. Drapieżca ["Ksin. Predator"] (Warsaw, Poland: Nowa Księgarnia, 2015) [Kotołak: pb/]
  • Ksin. Sobowtór ["Ksin. Copycat"] (Warsaw, Poland: Nowa Księgarnia, 2015) [Kotołak: pb/]
  • Ksin. Różanooka ["Ksin. Rose-eyed"] (Warsaw, Poland: Nowa Księgarnia, 2016) [Kotołak: pb/]
  • Ksin. Koczownik ["Ksin. Nomad"] (Warsaw, Poland: Nowa Księgarnia, 2016) [Kotołak: pb/]
  • Ksin. Na Bagnach Czasu ["Ksin. On the Swamps of Time"] (Warsaw, Poland: Nowa Księgarnia, 2017) [Kotołak: pb/]

Radosław Tomaszewski

  • Noteka 2015 (Warsaw, Poland: SR, 1996) [coll: Radosław Tomaszewski: pb/]
  • Noteka i inne alternatywy ["Noteka and Other Alternatives"] (Warsaw, Poland: Scutum, 2000) [coll: Radosław Tomaszewski: pb/]
  • Bo kombinerki były brutalne ["Because the Pliers Were Brutal"] (Warsaw, Poland: Lampa i Iskra Boża, 2003) [coll: Radosław Tomaszewski: pb/]
  • Złota kaczka ["Golden Duck"] (Gdynia, Poland: Werka, 2020) [Radosław Tomaszewski: pb/]

Far Eastern Trilogy

  • Bursztynowe Królestwo ["Amber Kingdom"] (Wrocław, Poland: Wydawnictwo Dolnośląskie, 2010) [Far Eastern Trilogy: pb/]
  • Afgański Zeus ["Afghan's Zeus"] (Wrocław, Poland: Wydawnictwo Dolnośląskie, 2011) [Far Eastern Trilogy: pb/]
  • Bohaterowie się odradzają ["Heroes Are Reborn"] (Wrocław, Poland: Wydawnictwo Dolnośląskie, 2012) [Far Eastern Trilogy: pb/]

Diabłu ogarek ["The Devil's Stump"]

individual titles

collections and stories

  • Legendy cyberkatakumb ["Legends of Cybercatacombs"] (Warsaw, Poland: Fantasmagoricon, 2009) [coll: pb/]
  • Utopie ["Utopias"] (Warsaw, Poland: Narodowe Centrum Kultury, 2013) [coll: pb/]

links

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