2022
2022
Grand Prize
Magdalena Salik
Born in 1978, daughter of history and mechanics teachers. A graduate of international political relations at the Warsaw School of Economics, however, she has never worked in her profession. Lives in Warsaw.
Writer, journalist and popular science editor. She worked in "Focus", "Dziennik", "Magiel", "Click!", "Chip FOTO-VIDEO". She made her debut in 2009 in Runa publishing house with the fantasy novel "Gildia Hordów" ("Guild of the Hordes"), opening the series "Doliny mroku" ("Valleys of Darkness"). The author of the novels "Płomień" ("Flame") and "Mniejszy cud" ("Lesser Miracle"). In 2022, honored with the Maciej Parowski Award granted by the editors of the journal "Nowa Fantastyka" and the Grand Prize of Jerzy Żuławski Literary Award for the novel "Płomień", written in the convention of science fiction.
(2022)
Płomień
(Flame)
Scientists are getting ready for the greatest mission of mankind to date. In space, quite close for its scale, the habitable Second Earth was discovered. What can unite a divided humanity? The solution seems to be a new Promethean myth: a worldwide interstellar project to explore an ice-covered globe.
A charismatic astrophysicist and space technology engineer is responsible for preparing "Flame" for launch. He recruits a talented moral psychologist who will be responsible for the ethical aspects of the project. Where will scientists lead this romance without a digital trace? Will mapping the brains of pilots participating in the mission prove successful and what dilemmas related to this will be faced by humanity?
In the novel by Magdalena Salik (a journalist dealing with science), the clash of alternative reality with unfulfilled human aspirations leads to an absolutely surprising ending. "Płomień" will bring satisfaction to both Stanisław Lem's fans and viewers of the "Westworld" series.
(lubimyczytac.pl)
2022
Gold Distinction
Phot. Darek Kula
Michał Cetnarowski
Born in 1980, writer, editor, publicist. Since 2013, editor of the Polish prose section of the „Nowa Fantastyka” magazine. Author of fiction books, incl. I dusza moja and Bestia najgorsza, a collection of essays on popular culture, Podwójna tożsamość bogów, the comic book Liber Horrorum: Księga grozy, created with the cartoonist Marcin Kułakowski. As part of the „Polish Legends. Allegro” together with Łukasz Orbitowski he wrote Wywiad z Borutą, for which the authors were honored with the Janusz A. Zajdel Award. Together with Paweł Majka, he created Kłębowisko żmij - an audio series for the Storytel.pl platform.
(2022)
Gnoza
(Gnosis)
The war has been going on for half a billion years. Warsaw, Poland, the world in the mid-21st century. It seems that the ecological crisis has been stifled, the greatest social inequalities have been filled in, and the global conflict is only smoldering. What price will you pay for it? The development of increasingly efficient and cheaper Artificial Intelligence was accelerated by the 2020 pandemic and the decade of crises that followed. Personal Assistants work on the basis of AI systems – that is, private interfaces, advisors analyzing behavior patterns and big data sets that know more about people than themselves. Thanks to this knowledge, they can best manage your health, diet, sport, career, work, relationship, free time, entertainment, personal life... Gnosis is a story about a clash between Body and Mind, Matter and Spirit, Nature and Culture.
(lubimyczytac.pl)
2022
Silver Distinction
Jan Maszczyszyn
Polish writer, born in 1960, author of "retro steampunk science fiction" stories and novels, long living in Australia. He made his debut in the literary monthly "Nowy Wyraz" in 1977 with the story "Strażnik". Then, thanks to the "Somnambul" Fantasy Club, founded in a group of Bytom enthusiasts, he made his name in Fandom, publishing in many magazines and anthologies. In 1986 he was the laureate of the second literary competition announced by the monthly "Fantastyka" (along with Sapkowski and Huberath). In the same year he got married and went to the Antipodes, where he had two wonderful daughters and three grandchildren. Years later, he returned to writing.
He has published in anthologies, such as "Spotkanie w przestworzach", "Pożeracz szarości", "Sposób na Wszechświat", "Dira necessitas", also in the quarterly ZLP "Metafora" (Krakow 2013), "Bizarro Bazar", "Bizarro Bizarro" (USA 2013), "Toystories" (Poland 2014). He has also published collection of his own short stories "Testimonium" (Poland 2013). He published his texts in many magazines both in Poland and abroad, e.g. in the Polish-language press and media in Australia.
(2022)
Chronometrus
In an alternative vision of the 20th century, the First World War breaks out. After a successful military campaign in the Western Pacific, the united forces of Imperial Japan and the Foreign Ningen Empire take over vast stretches of the island of Indonesia and Melanesia. Australia is another target of the speeding war machine.
Jack de Waay with his companions returns to Earth and finds himself in the middle of the war. They take part in a secret mission to sink a mighty part of the Japanese island. And so they get entangled in the next, perhaps the greatest adventure of their lives – a journey through the abyss of the ocean of time straight to the Earth's future, hundreds of millions of years away.
Countless adventures, conflicts and adversities raise questions not only about the condition of the human species over the centuries, but also about the meaning of the evolution of life, about the potential fruit that it absolutely must bear: artificial intelligence.
The imagination of Jan Maszczyszyn seems to have no limits, and his ability to take us on a journey to the worlds born in her is truly delightful. At a time when few authors manage to go beyond repetitive patterns, the author of "Chronometrus" completely rejects them and creates something completely new, different and completely his own.
"Chronometrus" is a continuation of "Necrolotum", a work awarded with the Silver Distinction of the Jerzy Żuławski Literary Award in 2020.
(lubimyczytac.pl)