SFinks
Entry updated 15 August 2025. Tagged: Publication.
Polish Semiprozine – so described by its founder Wojtek Sedeńko – devoted to Fantastika; first published from Olsztyn in Autumn 1994. [See also Publishing history below.]
Conceived as a Polish analogue of the trade journal Locus, this was initially a quarterly carrying nonfiction content such as bibliographic listings, publisher and author profiles, interviews, and other market news. Early issues were distributed only through Sedeńko's Verbum 2 mail-order bookshop; the print run grew from an initial 350 copies to around 3000.
SFinks began to stumble in the late 1990s, when its quarterly schedule broke down, with just five issues published 1998-2000. From 2000, it began to publish fiction, mostly translations from English and Russian, with an occasional Polish piece. After a one-year hiatus, the magazine resumed publication in 2002, now published by the large Poznań-based publishing house Zysk i S-ka, gaining nationwide distribution, first monthly and later bimonthly, with a peak year (8 issues) and a print run of 20,000. At that time it became the first Polish sf magazine in full colour, mixing coverage of current publishing with author interviews and features. After Sedeńko's departure from the editorial staff, SFinks continued for two further issues before ceasing in 2003.
Sedeńko relaunched the magazine in autumn 2009 with the subtitle Reaktywacja ["Reactivation"] as a free quarterly (circulation 5-7,000) for customers of his new online bookstore Solarisnet.pl, continuing its mix of interviews, book news and reviews. In 2012, now subtitled Rewolucje ["Revolution"], SFinks restored a fiction section presenting reprints of classic sf from the public domain or supplied directly by overseas authors. In late 2019, from #60, the publisher changed when the Solaris publishing house rebranded itself as Stalker Books (all of these entities remain under Sedeńko's control). In 2020 (from #61) SFinks changed format to digest size with a spine, expanded its critical and essay content, reduced the listings section, and enlarged its fiction offerings, now including new Polish stories alongside translations. It also returned to non-free status. Its description as a quarterly, remained theoretical, as its output varied from one to a maximum of three issues each year until 2021; from that point it finally achieved a steady output of four volumes a year (as of 2025).
Throughout its history SFinks has been an important source of bibliographic and publishing information for the Polish sf/fantasy field, functioning in its early years as a de facto trade journal for the genre. Interviews have featured not just key Polish authors but also foreign authors such as Paolo Bacigalupi, Orson Scott Card, Jeffrey Ford, George R R Martin and David Weber. In 1995 it lent its name to the Sfinks Award, a reader-voted poll first announced in its pages, that was active for two decades.
Notable contributors, in addition to the founding editor Wojtek Sedeńko, have included: Jacek Dukaj, Jarosław Grzędowicz, Marek Oramus, Lech Jęczmyk, Andrzej Zimniak, Jacek Inglot, Paweł Laudański, Rafał Śliwiak, Tomasz Hemperek, Andrzej Puzewicz, Arkadiusz Grzegorzak, Dariusz Wojtczak, Krzysztof Sokołowski, Wojciech Szyda and Elżbieta Żukowska. [PKo]
Editors
- Wojtek Sedeńko, founder, editor from 1994 to 2003 (except vols. 33–34)
- Rafał Śliwiak, 1994-2002; returned from 2009
- Zbigniew Tarasewicz, 1994-2001
- Jacek Inglot, 2002-2003
- Jacek Najdora, 2002-2003
- Dariusz Wojtczak, 2002-2003
Publishing history:
- 1994-1997: A5, 64-80pp, quarterly, vol. #1-13. Publisher: Verbum
- 1997-2002: A4, 32-64pp, quarterly, vol. #14-21. Publisher: Verbum/Solaris
- 2002-2003: A4, monthly then bimonthly, vol. #22-34. Publisher: Zysk i S-ka
- 2009-2012: A4, 32-36pp, quarterly, subtitled Reaktywacja, vol. #34-44. Publisher: Solaris
- 2012-2019: A4, 32-36pp, quarterly, subtitled Rewolucje, vol. #45-60 Publisher: Solaris (to #59), Stalker Books (#60)
- 2020-current: A6 digest, 128-200pp, quarterly, vol. #61. Publisher: Stalker Books
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