Piekara, Jacek

Entry updated 9 February 2026. Tagged: Author.

(1965- ) Polish author of Fantastika, best known for dark fantasy but who has published a number of works of sf interest. He debuted with two genre stories for Polish magazines: "Wszystkie twarze szatana" ["All the Faces of Satan"] (August 1983 Fantastyka), a bleak, theologically inflected dark fantasy of fragmented Identity and metaphysical pursuit, and "Czarodziejskie miasto" ["Magic City]" (September 1983 Problemy; vt "Zaklęte miasto" ["Enchanted City"]) , a melancholic fantasy parable in which an illusory City seeks survival through human attachment.

He studied psychology and law at the University of Warsaw while continuing to publish further genre stories in Fanzines and Magazines. His first book was the novella Labirynt ["Labyrinth"] (1986), an sf story about an investigator sent to a far-off planet where he encounters a mysterious Labyrinthine artefact left by an ancient Alien civilization; the narrative subsequently plunges into surrealistic projections of fragmented realities. The novel, blending Hard SF tropes with hallucinatory sequences that evoke subconscious fears, shows the influence of such luminaries as Philip K Dick and exemplifies late-1980s Polish sf trends toward adventure narratives featuring tough, nonchalant, and arguably coarse male protagonists.

In the 1990s, Piekara wrote for and edited gaming and fantasy magazines, often under the pseudonym Randall. His novella Imperium – Smoki Haldoru ["The Empire – Dragons of Haldor"] (1987; exp as Imperium ["The Empire"] 1990) can lay claim to be the first Polish fantasy novel. Shortly afterward, he adopted the pen name Jack de Craft for the only Polish Conan the Barbarian Tie-in novel, Conan: Pani Śmierć ["Conan: Lady Death"] (1992), an unauthorized pastiche (see Sequels by Other Hands) featuring the titular protagonist as the elderly and retired king of Aquilonia.

Piekara's career took off in the 2000s with his bestselling signature work the Inkwizytor ["Inquisitor"] cycle – also sometimes called the Mordimer Madderdin cycle, after its main character – beginning with the short story "W oczach Boga" ["In the Eyes of God"] (October 2001 Science Fiction) and has reached eighteen published volumes, both collections and full novels (2003-2024). It is a dark fantasy set in an Alternate History of mediaeval Europe where Christ, rather than dying, descended from the cross to exact bloody revenge and establish a brutal theocracy, and where inquisitors like Mordimer enforce the faith, confronting witches, demons, and heresies in a world pervaded by grim religiosity and moral ambiguity, with stories exploring the grotesqueries of an unrepentant Church (see also Klerykal Fiction; Religion). Piekara's alt-Christian setting richly Satirizes religious authority (see Religion), even as it indulges in Pulp adventure and Horror elements such as Torture chambers, undead spirits and demonic pacts. While the series itself, like most of Piekara's work, remains untranslated into English, it reached international audiences through the Videogame adaptation, The Inquisitor (2024; vt I, the Inquisitor).

Besides the Inquisitor saga, Piekara's output spans a broad range of fantastika subgenres. His early Arivald z Wybrzeża ["Arivald of the Coast"] fantasy stories, beginning with the 1992 story "To, co najważniejsze" ["This That is Most Important"] (January 1992 Fenix) and collected in two volumes in 2000 and 2005, are markedly light in tone – a picaresque series about a bumbling wizard, parodying Heroic Fantasy tropes in a vein closer to Terry Pratchett's Discworld-series Humour. Piekara also scripted the adventure Videogame Książę i Tchórz ["Galador: The Prince and the Coward"] (1998), set in this universe; the remastered game was released in English in 2021, one of Piekara's few works available internationally.

In contrast, Necrosis. Przebudzenie ["Necrosis. Awakening"] (2005) with Damian Kucharski is a venture into fantasy Horror: a mosaic of occult thriller tales that collectively sketch a grim, mediaeval-inspired world in which ancient sorcerers are rising from centuries-long slumber. His Rycerz Kielichów ["Knight of Chalices"] (2007), inspired by Roger Zelazny's Amber sequence, was not well received: in an isekai-like premise, a disillusioned contemporary IT specialist finds his dream consciousness projected into a vivid mediaeval dream-realm, where he assumes the role of a charismatic, amoral adventurer. Around that time, Piekara also wrote the Alicja ["Alice"] duology opening with Alicja (2007), a dark urban fantasy saga blending surreal horror, eroticism, and the moral grotesque: an adult twist faintly akin to Paranormal Romance [see The Encyclopedia of Fantasy under links below], though bleaker in outlook and with New Weird elements. In Charakternik (2009), Szubienicznik ["The Gallows Man"] (2013) and the latter's sequel Szubienicznik: Falsum et verum ["The Gallows Man: Falsum et verum"] (2014), Piekara turned to swashbuckling historical fantasy set in the era of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

Przenajświętsza Rzeczpospolita ["The Most Holy Republic"] (2006) is Piekara's best-known sf novel: a scathing satirical Dystopia set in a Near-Future Poland transformed into a grotesquely corrupt clerical regime, exaggerating Polish ultra-Catholic nationalism into absurdity – a modern Polish take on George Orwell and Kurt Vonnegut in its darkly comic depiction of a theocratic totalitarian state.

Piekara's other sf includes occasional short stories, such as "Jak ja was, kurwy, nienawidzę" ["How I Hate You, Bitches"] (in Niech żyje Polska. Hura!, anth 2007), a caustic alternate-present vignette that takes the form of a reactionary blogger's screed, blurring the line between political reality and speculative exaggeration: the protagonist discovers he has the supernatural ability to project concentrated hatred remotely as a Weapon.

Although his works received some award nominations, the only honor of note he "won" is the 2005 Złoty Meteor, an anti-award given in dubious tribute to a polemical article he ran as editor of Fantasy magazine. This piece criticized the awards process for the Polish Janusz A Zajdel Award, ruffling many feathers. Over time, Piekara has gained notoriety for his outspoken right-wing commentary on social media, which frequently targets progressive causes and figures, thereby polarizing the reception of his works within Polish fantastika circles. Despite this, his impact on Polish genre literature is significant: his works helped popularize grimdark religious fantasy in the 2000s, and exemplify the edgy, provocative strain of Polish speculative fiction that emerged after communism: a blend of pulp adventure and ideological pamphleteering, by turns vulgar and thought-provoking. [PKo]

Jacek Piekara

born Kraków, Poland: 19 May 1965

works

series

Inkwizytor ["Inquisitor"]

Sługa Boży ["God's Servant"] (Lublin, Poland: Fabryka Słów, 2003) [coll: Inkwizytor: pb/]
Młot na czarownice ["Malleus Maleficarum"] (Lublin, Poland: Fabryka Słów, 2003) [coll: Inkwizytor: pb/]
Miecz aniołów ["Sword of Angels"] (Lublin, Poland: Fabryka Słów, 2004) [coll: Inkwizytor: pb/]
Łowcy dusz ["Soul Hunters"] (Lublin, Poland: Fabryka Słów, 2006) [coll: Inkwizytor: pb/Damian Zieliński]
Płomień i krzyż tom 1 ["Fire and Cross vol. 1"] (Lublin, Poland: Fabryka Słów, 2006) [coll: Inkwizytor: pb/Dominik Broniek]
Ja inkwizytor. Wieże do nieba ["I, the Inquisitor. Towers to the Heavens"] (Lublin, Poland: Fabryka Słów, 2010) [coll: Inkwizytor: pb/Dominik Broniek]
Ja inkwizytor. Dotyk zła ["I, the Inquisitor. Touch of Evil"] (Lublin, Poland: Fabryka Słów, 2010) [coll: Inkwizytor: pb/Piotr Cieśliński]
Ja inkwizytor. Bicz boży ["I, the Inquisitor. Scourge of God"] (Lublin, Poland: Fabryka Słów, 2011) [Inkwizytor: pb/Dominik Broniek]
Ja inkwizytor. Głód i pragnienie ["I, the Inquisitor. Hunger and Thirst"] (Lublin, Poland: Fabryka Słów, 2013) [Inkwizytor: pb/Dominik Broniek]
Ja inkwizytor. Kościany galeon ["I, the Inquisitor. Galleon of Bones"] (Lublin, Poland: Fabryka Słów, 2015) [Inkwizytor: pb/Piotr Cieśliński]
Płomień i krzyż tom 2 ["Fire and Cross vol. 2"] (Lublin, Poland: Fabryka Słów, 2018) [Inkwizytor: pb/Sergei Shikin]
Płomień i krzyż tom 3 ["Fire and Cross vol. 3"] (Lublin, Poland: Fabryka Słów, 2019) [Inkwizytor: pb/Sergei Shikin]
Ja inkwizytor. Przeklęte krainy ["I, the Inquisitor. Cursed Lands"] (Lublin, Poland: Fabryka Słów, 2019) [Inkwizytor: pb/Piotr Cieśliński]
Ja inkwizytor. Przeklęte kobiety ["I, the Inquisitor. Cursed Women"] (Lublin, Poland: Fabryka Słów, 2019) [Inkwizytor: pb/Piotr Cieśliński]
Ja inkwizytor. Przeklęte przeznaczenie ["I, the Inquisitor. Cursed Fate"] (Lublin, Poland: Fabryka Słów, 2020) [Inkwizytor: pb/Dark Crayon]
Ja inkwizytor. Dziennik czasu zarazy ["I, the Inquisitor. Diary of the Plague Time"] (Lublin, Poland: Fabryka Słów, 2023) [Inkwizytor: pb/Piotr Cieśliński]
Płomień i krzyż tom 4 ["Fire and Cross vol. 4"] (Lublin, Poland: Fabryka Słów, 2023) [Inkwizytor: pb/Sergei Shikin]
Ja inkwizytor. Miasto Słowa Bożego ["I, the Inquisitor. City of the Word of God"] (Lublin, Poland: Fabryka Słów, 2024) [Inkwizytor: pb/Tobiasz Zysk]

Arivald z Wybrzeża ["Arivald of the Coast"]

Arivald z wybrzeża ["Arivald of the Coast"] (Warsaw, Poland: Prószyński i S-ka, 2000) [coll: Arivald z Wybrzeża: pb/Piotr Łukaszewski]
Ani słowa prawdy ["Not a Word of Truth"] (Warsaw, Poland: Runa, 2005) [coll: Arivald z Wybrzeża: pb/Dagmara Matuszak]

Alicja ["Alice"]

Alicja ["Alice"] (Lublin, Poland: Red Horse, 2007) [Alicja: pb/Magdalena Zawadzka]
Alicja i Ciemny Las ["Alice and the Dark Forest"] (Lublin, Poland: Red Horse, 2008) [Alicja: pb/]

Szubienicznik ["The Gallows Man"]

Szubienicznik ["The Gallows Man"] (Kraków, Poland: Wydawnictwo Otwarte, 2013) [Szubienicznik: pb/]
Szubienicznik: Falsum et verum ["The Gallows Man: Falsum et verum"] (Kraków, Poland: Wydawnictwo Otwarte, 2014) [Szubienicznik: pb/]

individual titles

Labirynt ["Labyrinth"] (Warsaw, Poland: Alma-Press, 1986) [pb/Ryszard Wojtyński]
Imperium – Smoki Haldoru ["The Empire – Dragons of Haldor"] (Warsaw, Poland: Iskry, 1987) [pb/Tadeusz łuczejko]
Imperium ["The Empire"] (Białystok, Poland: Białowieża, 1990) [pb/Jacek P. Szleszyński]
Conan: Pani Śmierć ["Conan: Lady Death"] (Warsaw, Poland: Camelot, 1990) [pb/Trieto]
Conan: Pani Śmierć ["Conan: Lady Death"] (Warsaw, Poland: Camelot, 1990) [pb/Trieto]
Przenajświętsza Rzeczpospolita ["The Most Holy Republic"] (Lublin, Poland: Red Horse, 2006) [pb/]
Rycerz Kielichów ["Knight of Chalices"] (Warsaw, Poland: Runa, 2007) [pb/Jakub Jabłoński]
Charakternik (Lublin, Poland: Fabryka Słów, 2009) [pb/Piotr Cieśliński]

collections

Zaklęte miasto ["Enchanted City"] (Warsaw, Poland: Nasza Księgarnia, 1990) [coll: pb/Artur Gołębiowski]
Necrosis. Przebudzenie ["Necrosis. Awakening"] (Lublin, Poland: Fabryka Słów, 2005) with Damian Kucharski [coll: pb/]
Świat jest pełen chętnych suk ["The World is Full of Easy Bitches"] (Lublin, Poland: Fabryka Słów, 2006) [coll: pb/]
Mój przyjaciel Kaligula ["My Friend Caligula"] (Lublin, Poland: Fabryka Słów, 2011) [coll: pb/Magdalena Zawadzka]
Bestie i ludzie ["Beasts and People"] (Lublin, Poland: Fabryka Słów, 2018) [coll: pb/Szymon Wójciak]
Witajcie w Zaklętej Krainie ["Welcome to the Enchanted Land"] (Poznań, Poland: Zysk i S-ka, 2018) [coll: pb/Tobiasz Zysk]
Witajcie w moim Piekle ["Welcome to my Hell"] (Poznań, Poland: Zysk i S-ka, 2018) [coll: pb/Tobiasz Zysk]

links

previous versions of this entry

Internet Archive