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No. 101
WORLDCON 2008
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EDITORIAL
Dear reader,
“Parsek” is the oldest Croatian
fanzine, first published in 1977 as the
bulletin of Science Fiction Club SFera from
Zagreb. Today, SFera consists of some two
hundred members and is a literary society,
as well as being a fan club. The annual
SFeraKon conventions attract hundreds of
fans, while prestigious SFERA Award is
being given in several categories. You will
also notice that many authors represented
here are SFERA Award winners.
Aleksandar Žiljak
Fluffy
3
Veronika Santo
The Heart of the Beast
8
Zvonko Bednjanec
The Ninth Duck
11
Milena Benini
The Circus Has Come
15
Dario Rukavina
A Passage to the East
23
Živko Prodanović
Now, let me introduce you to the
Croatian SF, with the little help of SFERA’s
official mascot, Bemmet.
SF haiku
28
Aleksandar Žiljak
Science Fiction in Croatia
29
SFeraKon GoHs
Enjoy!
They Said on Croatia…
43
Dalibor Perković and Boris Švel
Boris Švel
SF Conventions in Croatia
46
In Zagreb, 31st July 2008
NOTE: all materials are translated by the
authors themselves, unless stated otherwise
“Parsek” on net:
http://parsek.sfera.hr/
”
and
:
http://parsek.blog.hr/
PARSEK is bulletin of SFera, Društvo za znanstvenu fantastiku, IV. Podbrežje 5, 10000 Zagreb, Croatia. Editor
and designer: Boris Švel. All materials are translated by the authors themselves, unless stated otherwise. Proof-
reader: Aleksandar Žiljak. Cover: Darko Macan. All rights reserved.
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Being one of the foremost Croatian SF authors, Aleksandar Žiljak was born in 1963 and resides in
Zagreb. He won SFERA Award six times, equally excelling in illustration and prose, as well as the
editorial work, being the co-editor of the new Croatian SF literary magazine UBIQ.
Aleksandar Žiljak
FLUFFY
“Well, not bad for the first day”,
Ivana mutters with satisfaction, glancing at a
clock on the wall. True, the clock shows
there’s still two hours till closing time, but
Ivana doesn’t expect anyone to bring a pet
for trimming at six p.m., so she hopes for
some idling. Perhaps she could phone a
coffee bar across the street and ask Martin to
fetch her a cup of coffee. He doesn’t look
bad, Ivana muses. Not bad at all. Quite a
hunk, as a matter of fact. And she didn’t
miss the way she caught his attention, too.
She’ll let things develop for a day or two,
say till weekend, and then… Maybe they
could take a ride out of town and who
knows what can happen next…
Ringing
interrupts
Ivana’s
daydreaming rudely. It’s the entrance
membrane, announcing a customer. Ivana
rolls her eyes. Damn, just as she was hoping
for some rest!
“Mrs. Hulme is not here?” Mrs.
Hulme owns the pet care salon. She hired
Ivana three days ago, telling her to start
today. The woman standing before Ivana is
dressed in money from head to toe. Ivana
measures her up – not too obviously, she
hopes – and adds. Shoes plus black trousers
plus red jacket plus shawl plus purse… Well,
several grand at least. And that’s on sale.
Only, this woman doesn’t look like someone
shopping on sales. And there’s also a
bracelet and rings and ear-rings, probably a
necklace, too, hidden under the shawl. And
a hairdo and make-up – discreet but top
quality – that you don’t get for small change.
And all that on a supremely shaped and
polished body, despite her late forties. As
Ivana’s brother, an auto mechanic, would
say: nothing beats a well-refurbished old-
timer.
“No, Mrs. Hulme is absent today…
Some family business, you know.”
“Oooh… And I really have to go for a
trip tomorrow, and my Fluffy can’t travel
the way he is… You’re new here?”
“Yes, I’m Ivana. This is my first day.
Mrs. Hulme is not here, I’m sorry.”
“Hmmm, and what am I to do now?
And Fluffy is really…” The woman
obviously doesn’t have much faith in a
beginner, and the hurt professional pride
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starts stirring in Ivana. Was I best in class or
wasn’t I, she thinks angrily. And why is this
woman kidding me, as if I can’t trim some
poodle?
“Well, no problem, madam. I can take
care of your Fluffy!”
“Really?” Ivana nods eagerly.
“You’re right, I think you’ll manage! Fluffy
is not difficult, you know…”
Where the hell is that Fluffy, Ivana
wonders. The woman entered without any
dog or kitten or whatever people keep as
pets. But, the entrance membrane remained
opened… “Come, Fluffy! That’s the boy,
you just come in… You’ll tidy him up, won’t
you? You just trim his hair a little, while I
take a walk. I’ll return in an hour, hour and a
half, OK?”
Fluffy enters the salon somewhat
reluctantly, and Ivana immediately curses
her professional pride and best marks in
school and her big mouth. Fluffy stops,
sniffs around and then comes to his lady and
licks her hand. Ivana stares in disbelief and
then snaps out of it. “Err… Madam…
Fluffy… What species did you say he is?”
* * *
A Korab ground sloth is a three-
meters-long animal, measured from the
blunt snout to the tip of its short tail. It is
meter and a half tall at its shoulders. Fluffy’s
front paws are armed with strong claws,
some fifteen centimeters long, and he’s
waving them menacingly right now, keeping
Ivana at safe distance. His hair falls almost
to the floor: warmer days are nearing, and
Ivana has no doubt he could use some
trimming. But, when Fluffy’s owner left and
Ivana took scissors in her hand, sighing…
Fortunately, Fluffy warned her with
threatening grumbling: Ivana would have
never deduced from his tiny, dumb eyes that
a creature like that can have deadly intents.
Apparently, he doesn’t recognize her scent.
But, what was that damned woman thinking,
Ivana wonders, why didn’t she warn her?
Well, serves me right! I have no one
to blame for this but myself, Ivana curses as
Fluffy sits on his haunches, overgrown in a
meter-and-a-half long hair, snarling every so
often as the deadly-looking claws whiz
through the air.
“All right. Relax, take a deep breath…
There must be a way to handle this hairball.
Maybe I should call Mrs. Hulme?” Ivana
reaches for a cell phone in the pocket of her
smock, but then she stops. It may not be
such a good idea after all, not on her first
day here. Mrs. Hulme could get an
impression that Ivana cannot handle matters.
No use that she trimmed four pocket poodles
under a magnifying glass (each barely
twenty centimeters long), used tweezers to
exterminate ticks on a Maltese dwarf
elephant (wasn’t that a veterinarian’s job?),
cleaned ears of an Aldebaran haremorph
(half a meter long!) and polished a Wistary
armourclad’s carapace (the most grateful
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customer: she just pulls in and there’s
nothing to worry about). No use, if Mrs.
Hulme decides that Ivana cannot handle a
simple Korab ground sloth!
So, Ivana decides not to phone for
help. Maybe there’s something in drawers,
some instructions or notes? Only, the desk is
on the other end of the salon, and there’s
Fluffy between Ivana and the desk.
And so, Ivana slowly heads for the
desk, her back against the wall, not taking
her eyes away from those claws. Tiny,
mistrusting black eyes follow her, but if
Fluffy didn’t charge so far, Ivana hopes he
won’t.
The desk has several drawers. Ivana
saw some pads and notebooks in one of
them. She knows that one notebook is for
bookings. She opens the drawer and takes
everything out of it. Still keeping her eyes
on Fluffy, she leafs through the notes. Yes,
here it is, she found it! Mrs. Sova and
Fluffy, booked for 18:15 today. So, Fluffy’s
owner is Mrs. Sova. Pleased to meet you!
And Mrs. Sova even brought Fluffy a little
early. But there are no instructions, none
whatsoever. Apparently, Mrs. Sova
presumed that Ivana knows what to do with
Fluffy. But, she doesn’t… Sighing, Ivana
digs deeper in the drawer, finding some
displaced pencils and an old lighter. And
then she finds a little horn… Hmmm…
Bad idea! The moment she honked,
once, twice, Fluffy reared and howled and
sat back, still holding his claws before him.
Only, his stare stopped being stupid and
definitely became angry. “All right, all
right! You’re right, it pierced my ears, too!”,
Ivana admits, returning the horn back into
the drawer.
Maybe she should try the Net? Ivana
looks at the clock on the wall. Damn, she
already lost ten minutes, and by the time she
finds how to trim a Korab ground sloth…
She knows what she’s facing: she graduated
on hygiene and grooming of Aldebaran
snow cat. 357 000 sites on Aldebaran snow
cats, mostly about sex among Aldebaran
snow cats and sex with Aldebaran snow
cats. And only three sites with coherent
instructions on how to groom Aldebaran
snow cats. Same thing with all exotic pets.
And she didn’t even hear about that damned
sloth in the school…
“Bloody cow!”, Ivana curses aloud.
“Loaded herself with dough, so no way
she’ll buy pets normal people buy! A
poodle, a great Dane, a Persian cat, a panda
bear? No, milady has to have a ground sloth!
What does she see in you, anyway, all you
do is sit and growl!” Fluffy doesn’t reply,
but he doesn’t lower his claws, either.
Damn, she can’t even reach him… Maybe
she should try some nice words?
“You’re a goood one, Fluffy, goood
one… Now, you must be soo hot and auntie
Ivana will trim you just a little bit… Just let
me take care of you, and you’ll be so niice
and coool…” Ivana tries to approach Fluffy,
comb in one hand, scissors in another. She
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barely makes a step before those claws
whizz through the air. Ivana bolts away, but
also realizes that Fluffy could have already
shred her to ribbons if he really wanted to.
This way, he just warns her and keeps her at
bay. Only, this stalemate can last forever: it
won’t do if Mrs. Sova returns to find her
Fluffy as overgrown as he was when she left
him here.
“Perhaps Martin knows something”,
Ivana hopes as she takes her cell phone. The
way he brought coffee to Ivana today, he
was bringing coffee to Mrs. Hulme and all
the others working here, so maybe he
knows…
“Yes?”, Martin’s voice on the other
end of the line sounds impatient. Ivana hears
murmur of guests and music: the coffee bar
must be crowded.
“It’s me, Ivana.”
“Listen, I’m a little pressed here,
I’ll…”
“HEEEEELP!”
“Let me guess: Fluffy? I’ve seen the
Sova woman bringing it to you.”
“Devil may take him, all he does is
rears and growls and waves those claws of
his and he won’t let me close and…”
“Hey, listen, no panic! You’ve got a
little box in one of the drawers. Pale blue,
with fancy butterflies and flowers and a key.
Take it and wind it… It’s for little babies.”
“A little box? I didn’t find any little
boxes”, Ivana opens drawer after drawer,
rummaging through them. “I did find a
horn…”
“Nooo! No horns, he hates that! Find
the box, it must be there somewhere…”
“But, there’s no… Oh! Here it is!”
The box is a piece of kitsch Ivana wouldn’t
even look at, pushed deep in the third
drawer. Obviously, Fluffy doesn’t come too
often. “And this will calm him down?”
“No. Look, it’s not for him…” Not for
him? “I don’t have time to explain right
now, you just play the box and see for
yourself. I’ll call you back, OK?” And
Martin hangs down, leaving Ivana more
baffled than before. Not for him? Then for
whom?
OK, let’s see, Ivana sighs and winds
the music box. A quiet, ringing melody
spreads from it, some ancient lullaby. Fluffy
is still reared, his claws drawn, but Ivana
notices the hair on his belly moving, as if
there’s something hidden in it.
“What is that?” A tiny pointed snout
emerges, sniffing the air. And then, a small
animal, no longer than Ivana’s index finger,
disappears back under the hair. Some more
commotion, it takes perhaps a minute for a
grown male zebra shrew to come out of
Fluffy’s coat. Ivana recognizes it, it’s a
common animal in gardens, named after
striped back. Another one appears after the
first one, somewhat smaller. It’s a female,
and she’s not alone! A tiny shrew holds her
tail with its teeth. Its tail is held in turn by
the second one, who is held in turn by the
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third one. Ivana counts six little ones. Daddy
zebra shrew, mummy zebra shrew and a
caravan of six baby zebra shrews. “I’m not
supposed to trim them, too, am I?!” And
then the caravan stops, mummy looks
around and squeals silently. A moment later,
the seventh tiny shrew leaves the sloth’s hair
and grabs the sixth one with its teeth. Now,
with everybody present and accounted for,
the procession descends to the floor next to
Fluffy and moves aside.
Fluffy looks at them for several long
moments. Ivana has a momentary
impression that he’s counting them, and
then, when he’s certain that everybody got
off him, he lowers his claws. “I mean,
really!”, Ivana mutters as she approaches
Fluffy carefully, holding scissors in her
hand, suspicious and ready for all kinds of
dirty tricks. But, the huge animal, that
threatened to tear Ivana apart only a moment
ago, is now waiting meekly for her to start
trimming his hair.
* * *
“You see, the lullaby is a sign for the
shrew family to leave the coat while the
trimming goes on. The Sova woman has the
same box at home. She winds it when she
baths and brushes Fluffy. That’s what the
shrews learned to recognize.”
“You know, I could have sworn he
was counting them!” Ivana sips her coffee.
Working hours are over and she dropped to
Martin’s. She had to thank him somehow for
his advice, and the Saturday evening is
already agreed upon.
When Ivana was done trimming and
brushing him, Fluffy looked pleased. And
the shrews looked pleased, too: they rapidly
climbed his leg and crawled back into his
coat. Most important, Mrs. Sova was also
pleased. “Oh, my, you really tidied him up!
And you didn’t have any problems with
him, did you? He’s a good boy, my little
Fluffy! And I’m sure to tell Mrs. Hulme
how good a job you did!” The tip turned out
to be quite nice, not bad for the first day, not
bad at all.
“Well, he wanted to see if anybody
was missing.”
“But, I mean, isn’t he too stupid to
count? And where did he pick them up,
anyway?”
“Probably in his garden.”
“You know what?”, Ivana murmurs.
“Come to think of it… He was really
overgrown, but his coat was completely
clean. No ticks, no fleas, mites, seed,
nothing.”
“Ha”, Martin winks, “Why do you
think he guards them so jealously? Zebra
shrews are renowned pest exterminators.”
“Well”, Ivana thinks about it for a
moment, then shrugs and takes another sip.
“I guess there must be more than meets the
eye behind those eyes.”
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It is sometimes quoted that the female authors are the actual mainstay of the Croatian science fiction,
and Veronika Santo certainly comes to mind for that matter. Born in 1957, she currently resides in
Rome, Italy and is a SFERA Award winner. Venturing into most diverse motifs, ranging from
cyberpunk to the magic realism, her stories are always a pleasure to read.
Veronika Santo
THE HEART OF THE BEAST
Alisandra dreamt.
* * *
She paused briefly beside the stony well.
As she leaned toward the smooth dark water,
she saw his face.
He watched her behind the water mirror,
black eyes sprouting like geysers. He was hairy,
infinitely ugly and she felt tears of pity filling
her eyes. She didn’t turn. Instead, she reached
for the reflection.
“I won’t hurt you”, Alisandra said. “If
you let me touch you…”
The image wavered and a moment later,
the black water plate was empty again.
A knot of dark paths spread before her,
leading into a labyrinth in the middle of the
garden. A white rose bud lay on the ground
before her. The stem was squashed as if
somebody chewed it through with teeth, but the
flower smelt fresh and sweet.
* * *
Next night, Kaliopo watched again as his
wife attached the dream-tape around her head.
Its crystals glittered softly in the grey light of
the room.
“What are you dreaming tonight?”,
Kaliopo asked. “Why don’t you take the tape
off for one night and dream your true dreams?”
“These are my true dreams”, Alisandra
muttered, her head sinking into the pillow.
Kaliopo studied her spilled curls for
another moment, white face smiling at the first
touch of sleep, and then he pulled his blanket to
his chin and turned to the other side of the bed.
* * *
Alisandra already walked the dreamy
path that opened to the garden and castle. The
garden changed considerably since last night.
Weeds disappeared from graveled paths, hedges
lost their untidy crowns and stretched all the
way to the central labyrinth. Even the castle
looked somewhat brighter: the shutters of her
room were opened, so sunlight mixed freely
with the cool of inside darkness.
She stepped freely on the path, feeling
the fresh sharp smell of trimmed box in her
nostrils. She knew the tale. The beast was
somewhere in the castle or the garden, waiting
for her. It hid in the dark corners, ashamed of
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the evil encrusted in its grotesque mask. Once it
feels love, the magic will save it and she will
experience the final scene with the prince.
Today, the paths opened willingly before
her, just like spread fingers. She chose one and
it took her straight to the shady interior of the
castle.
Like always, the warm live coal in the
fireplace broke the darkness of the large central
hall. Alisandra quickly stole upon the stairs and
run up. She felt her heart flutter uneasily in her
chest.
Her room was upstairs. It had a high
ceiling and walls covered in dark wood
traversed by a tall mirror, like a stone inserted
in a ring. Alisandra smiled at her reflection and
reached for a dress, its spread white lace
waiting on the bed.
A dead bird stared glassily at her from
beneath the dress. Feathers on her wings were
torn, tiny droplets of blood spread on the white
sheets around the twisted neck. Alisandra
slowly opened her mouth, and then she
screamed forcefully.
* * *
“I don’t want you sleeping with that
tape anymore”, Kaliopo said resolutely.
“It’s a classic tale”, Alisandra replied.
Her voice was calm, but she still felt her pulse
beating madly.
“This is just the story framework”,
Kaliopo answered. “I know you’re using semi-
autonomous programs.”
“That means nothing can happen to me
that I don’t want.”
“And what do you want?”
“For the beast to turn into a prince.
That’s the tale, isn’t it?”
“That means I’m not enough as your
prince”, Kaliopo tried a joke.
Alisandra didn’t answer him. She turned
to the other side of the bed and closed her eyes.
Still, she didn’t put the tape that night.
* * *
In two days, Alisandra was back in the
garden. She passed all the paths, only avoiding
the labyrinth. The garden was resplendent. The
rose shrubs were flowering, fountains were
awake, water drops opened on the gravel like
tiny rainbows.
He wasn’t in the garden, he wasn’t in the
house. And yet, he was there somewhere,
Alisandra felt his stare. The wind dragged his
breath along the path, weaving it before and
behind her as if she was closed inside a noose.
Alisandra stopped suddenly and looked into the
closed walls of the labyrinth.
“If you let me kiss you…”, she said. “If
you let me kiss you…”, she shouted at the dark
entrance of box, not finishing her thought.
Small green leaves rustled, as if the wind
rose suddenly from the ground. A white rose
fell quietly before her feet. Somebody tried to
open the bud and the petals now lay opened and
despised. Alisandra recalled the previous bud
and the dead bird and started crying.
* * *
Kaliopo watched her walking across the
house restlessly.
“You’re ruining yourself”, he said. “That
damned night-program will kill you!”
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“He wants it, he must want it”, Alisandra
said more to herself, as if she didn’t hear him.
“That’s how it is in all tales. A frog and a
princess, for instance. Why do you think I’m
ruining myself?”, she rose her head suddenly.
“It’s just a tale.”
“It possesses you too much for being just
a tale”, he answered her, turning his back to her.
Suddenly, he felt very tired.
“Besides”, she laughed and he shivered
at that laughter, ringing like autumn rain against
pavement, “I think you’re just being jealous.”
* * *
Alisandra stood at the entrance of the
labyrinth and listened to her heart beating. She
knew he was there, waiting for her. She took a
deep breath and started ahead. She walked
calmly and steadily, as if knowing the way. The
center unwrapped towards her like a coil of
thread.
He waited for her there, his back turned
to her, his arms and legs too long, his head too
large. Revulsion filled her for a moment, but
then she recalled the tale and stepped straight
ahead.
She stood behind him, barely reaching
his shoulders, completely calm. The moment
came, she knew what she had to do.
The beast turned and Alisandra yielded
at the same moment. They looked at each other.
His eyes moved like boiling sea, sucking her in
like whirlpool of hot tar. She realized instantly
that there was nothing beneath, nothing hidden,
no prince.
This dark stare was all the reality,
timeless evil getting ready to punish her for
daring to reach for the heart of the beast.
Alisandra turned and run, straight down
the path disappearing in the outer part of the
labyrinth. Moon shimmered palely on the box
shrubs. White gravel flew beneath her feet,
twigs caught her dress. She felt strange silence
behind her. Perhaps the beast didn’t even need
legs. It will catch her with thoughts like
tentacles and pull her into its abyss. Alisandra
thought of Kaliopo. She stopped for a moment,
closed her eyes tightly and thought of Kaliopo
sleeping on the pillow next to her.
* * *
Kaliopo turned in bed and looked at his
wife uneasily. Her face was pale, her hair black.
She’s beautiful like Snow White, he thought
gently, and then he leaned and kissed her
fleetingly in her mouth.
* * *
Alisandra felt the kiss and opened her
eyes swiftly. She saw Kaliopo’s face in the
semidarkness.
“Your heart beats so strongly”, he said
and kissed her once again. “Why don’t you stop
these nightmares?”
She reached for him and embraced him
tightly. They lay like that for a long time, side
by side, as the night drained slowly towards the
first lights of the day.
(Translated by Aleksandar Žiljak)
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One of the younger authors, Zvonko Bednjanec is a name to reckon with…
Zvonko Bednjanec
THE NINTH DUCK
On the very edge of the Universe, in
the most distant arm of the Galaxy, on the last
planet of the System, there’s a Hill. Freshly
overgrown in grass, a really large hill by some
standards, it has a dilapidated wooden hut on
its top. The hut is without windows, smoke
rises from its chimney. A huge slug, weighing
several tons, white in color with blue polka-
dots, climbs that hill, advancing its
voluptuous mass towards the hut. The volume
of the hut is such that it’s not even
theoretically capable of accommodating the
slug.
Will anybody of them figure it out
today?, the slug thought. Will anybody stand
out?
You must know that climbing of a slug
scaling several tons takes time. Although in
the barren grassy landscape, a lot of things
happened before him. Numerous flying things
circled above the hut and disgorged their
gaudy and multi-tentacled passengers. One of
them just materialized at the entrance,
surrounded by the bright white light. Before
entering the hut, they were all searched by a
quick look of a three-legged and four-armed
monster with horns and so much equipment
all over him that you wouldn’t feel like telling
him a joke in the broadest of daylights.
Finally, the slug reached the hut. He
greeted the horned one with a nod and
entered. Interesting thing was, as he passed
the doors, stooped and with difficulty, his
bulk changed from slimy and stocky mass
into a bill and head and feathers. The truly
real Great Duck entered the hut! But these
weren’t real bill and head and feathers, they
were more energy-like, untouchable. The
Great Duck waddled to the semi-circular
table. The other nine ducks, also transformed,
already sat at their places.
The outer doors closed. The horned one
remained outside and hung the inscription
ARCHITECTURE WORKSHOP – DO NOT
DISTURB, positioning himself menacingly
before the doors. Not that there’s anything
that could overwhelm him, not that anything
exists that could hurt the creatures that just
entered.
“The reason we met here today”, the
Great Duck started without greetings and
introductions, “is an ever-increasing number
of mistakes and faults in our products.” All
the nine sitting ducks observed her waddling,
left-right. “The deadlines are prolonging, the
expenses are mounting. Gods are unsatisfied -
they devote eons to a Universe, without
results.” The silence echoed. “You know what
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are the unsatisfied gods like, don’t you?”
Thundering silence. “Does anybody know
where does the mistake lie?”
The gazes of nine ducks flew across the
table. The tension grew visibly, because this
was an architecture workshop after all, and
they should have an answer. Then, the toothed
duck with glasses spoke. Of course, we all
know that ducks don’t have teeth, but this one
really looked as if her front teeth project a
little bit…
“I think… err… I think the Universes
are becoming increasingly monopolar”, the
toothed duck said.
“Explain”,
the
Great
Duck
commanded.
“Every universe
is based on
transformation of energy and matter”, the
toothed duck said and adjusted her glasses
with her wing. “In the last several instances, I
worked on markedly matter-matter ones. The
energy level is low and so the fight to control
the matter happens all the time. Wars, money,
slavery, all that… I think.”
“Give us an example”, the Great Duck
commanded again. Met by the horrified stare
of the toothed duck, she put forward a
suggestion: “For instance, Mirko the two-
legged goes for summer holidays.”
“Mirko goes for summer holidays on
the beach”, the toothed duck started with
scared look. “He just digs the sand and sea
and stores them in his pockets. He doesn’t
even look at She-Mirko: she doesn’t interest
him. He does not think about the Being of the
Universe.”
“That cannot be”, the morose duck
spoke. “In matter-matter, you at least know
what you’re working with. Everything else is
zero. That’s the only way things get any
good…”
“If I really set myself to work”, the
mustached duck interrupted the morose one,
“I’d work on matter-energy universe. It’s
much easier to reach the balance. When you
work that way, it doesn’t matter if the
construction of the universe is petard-
contracting…”
“Ooooh, you know what”, a duck with
really fine energy feathers rose. “This sounds
real super, but then you get Mirko the two-
legged, you know… The beach is real cool to
him, but he doesn’t take his eyes off his She-
Mirko, much less his fingers, pardon me for
saying, so at the end the Being of the
Universe again comes to nothing. And wars
and all that? They’re still here. ‘Cause you
can buy She-Mirko with money.”
“The only correct universe organization
setting relates to energy-matter.” It was a
deep-sounding voice of the plate-billed duck.
“Beings elevated above the need to satisfy the
material achieve considerably larger degree of
comprehension…”
“Me disagree…”, the pointed-ears duck
opposed her.
“That cannot be”, the morose duck
spoke, but the pointed-ears duck was louder
and so she continued:
“Energy-matter not dealing so much
with material. Control, also. Control what
others think. Control others to control what
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13
others think. Mirko and She-Mirko on the
beach all the time, eat sand and sea a little,
because they stable bio-fields, mixed,
together. Sun enough for them. They no think
how is being a duck.”
The ready duck saw a moment of
silence and jumped the meeting. “My choice
would always be the energy-energy setting,
yes, yes. Little raw materials, a lot of energy,
without much bothering, yes. And then I
choose the Great Contraction option and
everybody learns how it’s done.”
“Don’t give us the crap that it works! It
never works”, the morose duck said.
“What doesn’t work?”, the ready duck
shouted.
“Yeah, well, it’s sooo…”, the fine-
feathered duck spoke again. “But even here
Mirko-boy is not much-of-a-something, just
floating through beach and water. He doesn’t
look at Mirko-baby but chooses the best spot
for the energies of sea and sand and sun. And
what? What’s there for him to worry about?
No tale of Being and blah-blah. It’s all so
clear.”
The silence was again audible in the
room. They all somehow seemed to look at
the Great Duck. They expected something.
Miraculously, she spoke:
“And? What’s the solution?”
The answer didn’t come. They all sat,
crestfallen.
“All right, then”, the Great Duck said.
“You said everything. Every universe is
transformation: from several-atoms-amoeba
to pure energy being. And vice versa. Every
universe also has its structure: the big bang
and/or contraction, the DNA helix, two poles
with interfering shadows and so on. All
according to the investing deity order. All
right?”
Silence.
C’mon, the Great Duck thought.
Anybody. Anything.
“We need something new, don’t we?”,
the Great Duck asked. “A new premise? Not
just the stated ones?” C’mon, ducks! It’s right
before your bills!
Nothing.
“What does universe do, besides the
said transformation?”, the Great Duck asked.
“It grows old, doesn’t it? If it grows old,
what’s the third premise?”
Suddenly the ninth duck spoke, the one
that kept silent all the time: “We don’t know.
Would you help us?”
The Great Duck studied all that
worthlessness that looked at her, begging.
“The growth spin. The beings helping
other beings to develop. The beings that help
the processes of universe transformations.”
Nothing.
“And of course, the decay spin. The
beings that steal the growth from others. That
steal energy from the correct sequence. That
destroy civilizations, kill species and
subjugate them. Thus maintaining the balance
of positive and negative.”
Nothing.
The Great Duck stared at a point on the
floor. She must do it now. Indeed, it can’t be
helped.
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The Great Duck drew a matter-energy
knife and went after her pupils. Some ducks
tried running, some tried outwitting the
horned one at the doors. With the same
outcome.
* * *
The huge slug with blue polka-dots was
in front of the wooden hut, accompanied by
the monster carrying so much equipment:
“Did you do them, Boss?”
The slug nodded his colossal head.
“Shall I gather them and send them
back?”
The slug looked sadly somewhere
downwards: “Not this time, Strongy. This
time, I did them for real.”
The horned one became dejected. He
didn’t understand. “But, Boss, these guys
were close?”
“There’s no ‘close’ with us, ducks. You
either are or you aren’t.” The slug started his
descent down the hill.
“It’s all about the ninth duck, isn’t it,
Boss?”, he heard behind him.
* * *
It is a good question what conclusion
will the scientists of every universe reach
when they discover that ducks are the only
organism and species capable of surviving in
every biotope on almost every world. Many
species then try – by changing their genetic
structure – to approach this ideal to the
maximum. But a duck is not just bill and head
and feathers. A duck is an idea! You cannot
think like a duck – you must be a duck!
This is not the first time that he had to
clean the entire workshop. Really clean. It is
terrible to think of a path that every of these
beings had to pass, things that an individual
has to do in order to overgrow the universe it
lives in? To survive its death? The path that
elevates the being to the level of a god? But,
recently, these young gods… So lost…
You cannot really kill a god. Not even
a young one. These ones will be returned,
sown into some young universe. Let them
start the cycle once again. You can imagine
things he will have to hear from their parents.
It happens more and more often.
Universes without offspring. Naturally,
everybody blames his office. The question he
keeps asking himself is, what kind of parents
they are, unable to create children, gods
without heirs? Or is the fundamental idea
really worn out? This Being embodied in the
holiest of symbols? Is the Time of the Duck
reaching its end?
All the time, he kept running into a
cow across universes. Sacred cow this, sacred
cow that. Is that some rudiment from the past?
A subtle game played by an even greater
player? A sign of things to come?
If he was forced to choose… A more
significant shape? A porcupine, perhaps? A
camel? No. That’s not it… It cannot be.
(Translated by Aleksandar Žiljak)
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Well established author and editor, Milena Benini is also a renown translator. Being a SFERA Award
winner, she never hesitates to lend help to the younger colleagues. Milena lives and works in Zagreb.
Her stories are usually irresistibly charming, and we hope you will enjoy this one.
Milena Benini
THE CIRCUS HAS COME
Some things never die. Like flies. The
one on the ceiling above Chico’s bed was so
tiny, Chico had been staring at the little dot
for a couple of minutes without knowing it
was alive. And then, as flies sometimes do,
it started walking in senseless, confused
lines, and the man on the bed realised what
he had believed to be a spot of dirt was
really a living creature. He followed it with
his gaze for a while, trying to discern a
pattern in the fly’s itinerary. When both the
fly and Chico’s gaze ended up at the same
place for about the sixth time, the man gave
up. The fly made a few circles around the
little room, and then settled dignifiedly in a
far corner to resume its confused walk.
Chico smiled at the fly across the room.
“You’re just like us, really,” he
murmured, but the fly didn’t reply. “I’ll bet
no one expected your species to survive
deep into the space-age. But you did. And so
did we.”
The fly answered this with another
quick round of the room, then returned to
the place on the ceiling where Chico had
first spotted it.
“Besides,” added Chico, leaning back
so he could keep the fly in sight, “your
travels seem as well-planned as ours.”
The fly said nothing, again. Chico let
out a resigned sigh. The fly wasn’t
particularly good company. But then, after
being crammed in the small ship for almost
a month, neither was anybody else. Chico
closed his eyes. It was better than staying on
surface, he supposed, but being the biggest
small interstellar circus had its drawbacks,
too.
Like the rain, for example. Chico
missed the rain. He frowned, trying to recall
when was it that he had last felt it. He
missed the tiny dum-dum sound of raindrops
and, also, he missed the meaning of it: rest.
There was no dead season for a space-going
circus and, since Benjy had, three years ago,
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faced them all with the choice of closing up
or going to the stars, the only periods of rest
they had were the four weeks the ship
needed to travel in deep space, two in
reaching the relativity-banned hole and two
to cool off after coming out of it.
They were actually earning money,
which was better than they could hope to do
on surface, that much was true. The
colonised planets were either too developed
and rich to give a chance to a six-men show,
or too busy with staying alive to have time
for fun. But the stations were different.
Sprinkled all over the known universe, they
served as mid-points between planets and
the space, where people would serve in short
shifts between real duties. In practice, they
were used for storing away the too old or too
shaky. There was nothing really to do in a
station. But people were still posted on
stations. Like flies or circuses, old habits
didn’t die away.
And then there were the border
stations. Not connected to any single planet,
they were the outposts of the empire,
circling in endless waltzes on the very edges
of the space man had conquered. They were
supposed to serve as welcoming-committees
in case some alien race decided to make its
appearance. Pushed further on every year,
they were small, boring, and useless.
Mankind had spread far from its original
planet. But it was still alone. Chances that a
foreign race would be found were
considered non-existent by now. But you
could still find late shows where dashing
heroes confronted dangerous black spiders
from galaxies far away. And the border
stations, nick-named boredom stations,
remained. And circuses, even small ones
like Benjy’s, were a welcome sight.
Which was why they were heading to
a border station right now. But Chico was
getting bored with border stations and just
about everything else. Travelling through
space sounds grand, but it’s really very much
like going around the world in a jet: it’s fast,
and you don’t get to see anything. Only, it
takes a lot longer.
Even the fly seemed to lose interest in
Chico and buzzed through the half-closed
door out into the corridor. Outside,
somebody said, “Hey!”
“Yes?”
“We’re nearing the docking area,
Benjy wants you in the control room.”
“Oh.”
Of all the people aboard The Lucky
Bastard, Chico was the only one with a
pilot’s licence. Most of the time, it didn’t
matter – the automatic controls took care of
everything – but, near the stations, Benjy
always insisted on Chico being present, just
in case. With a sigh, Chico got up and went
out.
“Couldn’t you have just buzzed me?”
he asked.
“The intercom’s broken again,”
replied the tall man who had been waiting
for him. “The twins are trying to fix it but,
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considering what happened when they tried
to fix the artigrav system, I thought this
would be quicker.”
“Well, you’re the magician, you make
it work.”
Everything was always coming apart
on The Lucky Bastard, and Chico was
starting to suspect the ship’s name related to
the fact that it still managed to fly.
The magician smiled and shook his
head. “Not even Houdini could make that
work,” he said. “And I doubt very much that
the twins can. But they’re trying.”
Something in the magician’s voice
made Chico looked at him suspiciously.
“Using what technique?”
“Curse it and slam it, than switch it on
again and see what happened.”
“I don’t know why I’m the clown,”
murmured Chico climbing the steps that led
to the control room. “You should take my
job, Pieter.”
Pieter, better known as Pierrot the
Magnificent, shook his head.
“Oh, no. You couldn’t do the magic
act.”
“Anyone can take cats out of top-
hats.”
“Not with my style. Besides, Belle
wouldn’t let you stab her with stilettos.”
“Or with anything else, for that
matter,” added a female voice from the
control room. “Have the twins done
anything to the intercom?”
“I don’t know,” answered Pieter.
“Haven’t you checked it from here?”
“We’ve been far too busy trying to
make the bloody computer work.” Benjy
turned to Chico with an expression of
despair on his face. “We can’t make
contact.”
Chico looked at the radar and the fat
light-bug that represented the station. “But
that’s impossible. We’re so close now we
should be able to phone them, let alone
connect with their computer. Let me see.”
Brushing Benjy aside, he seated himself at
the controls and pressed several buttons.
When the computer ignored him, he turned
on the communicator.
“This is The Lucky Bastard,” he said.
“Registration number LBD/4-CA3 We’re
having trouble with our computer. Request
permission to come down.”
He waited for a while, but nothing
came out of the speaker. He tried again, with
the same result.
“This is insane,” he said finally.
“Impossible.” He turned to Pieter. “Go down
and see what the twins are doing. If they’ve
messed with the communication system, I’ll
personally throw them both off their trapeze
without a net.” Speaking, he started turning
the power cells off.
“What are you doing?”
“Saving power. If we can’t contact the
computer, we can’t get into the station. If we
can’t get in, we’ll have to go someplace
else.”
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“But we can’t,” said Benjy. “We’ve
just enough batteries to get us down. We
were counting to get a refill here.”
Chico sighed and rubbed his eyes.
“Couldn’t we have taken some reserve?”
Benjy fidgeted with his tie. “Well,
power’s so damn expensive on Vars, I
thought…”
“The twins swear they haven’t
touched anything but the intercom system.
Which still isn’t working”, interrupted Pieter
coming back.
“Great,” said Chico. “What now?”
Pieter sighed. “The way things are
going, we can expect the power cells to go
down on us any moment now. Do we have
any candles?”
Suddenly, Chico slammed his fist
against the control panel. “Candles! That’s
right!”
Pieter lifted his eyebrows. “I suppose
there’s a pun coming, but I admit I don’t see
it,” he said.
“Not a pun,” answered Chico
enthusiastically, “but a solution!” He
switched the engine back on.
“What are you doing?” asked Benjy
worriedly. “You’re getting us closer to the
station.”
“Of course I am.” Chico was
concentrating on manoeuvring the ship. “I
have to, if we want to contact the station.”
“Why? We’re too close as it is.”
“Of course!” exclaimed Belle. “The
candle!”
“I don’t suppose either of you
geniuses would care to share your brilliant
idea with the rest of us mortals?”
“Don’t you see, Pieter?” Belle got into
the seat next to Chico’s and started turning
the front lights off. “We’ll contact them
visually. With our candle.”
That was the nickname the twins had
given to the ship’s beam-cannon. It was so
weak the best it could produce was a
blinding light. But, since The Lucky Bastard
kept well away from dangerous areas, the
weapon was never replaced.
Pieter frowned slightly. “Suppose
nobody happens to look out of the
window?”
“Don’t be so pessimistic, Piet,”
snapped Bell. “Somebody’s bound to, sooner
or later. After all, what else have they got to
do, in a border station?”
“You’ve got a point there,” admitted
Pieter and settled into his chair. “Let’s just
hope there’s somebody bored – and familiar
with Morse – down there right now.”
There was, apparently. As soon as the
station came up on the front window, Chico
stopped the ship and started shooting in
Morse. He sent several SOS’s, then their
name and registration number, then the SOS
again.
“What could they use to reply with?”
asked Benjy. “I don’t suppose they’ve got a
lousy beamgun, too.”
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“No, but they should find something.
Turn the communicator on, too,” said Chico.
“It might decide to start working again.”
A couple of minutes passed with the
station apparently unconcerned. Then,
suddenly, all the tiny lights on station
windows went out at once.
“Either they’ve forgotten to pay some
bills or they’re answering us,” Pieter
murmured. Chico waved him to silence with
an impatient hand, watching the dark spot
that the station had become. The lights went
on again… then off. Urgently, Chico started
writing the dots and the dashes down.
“Wel-come the Lu-cky Bas-tard. Per-
mis-sion to dock gran-ted,” Belle was
deciphering. “Ha-ving com-pu-ter trou-ble,
so-rry. Will beam do-cking in-struc-tions.
Great!” she exclaimed finally. “So we’re
stuck with a station that’s as lousily
equipped as ourselves.”
“All they have to have is a generator
where we can fill our batteries,” replied
Chico. “And then we can go someplace
civilised and have our systems repaired.”
“Well,” tried Benjy gently, “the least
we can do is give a show for them, too.”
Chico nodded without turning,
carefully noting down the relative co-
ordinates he would need to dock the ship by
hand.
“Of course we’ll give a show. We’re a
circus, aren’t we?”
“I wonder if they’ll be surprised when
they find that out,” said Belle.
They were, but not half as much as
the circus crew. With The Lucky Bastard
safely stored in one of the station hangars,
they were greeted by an old, wrinkled man.
“Hi there,” said the man. “My name’s
Jeremiah Toretti. Welcome to my station.”
“Your station?” Benjy forgot his
manners in surprise. “What do you mean?”
“Well, there’s nobody else here but
me and Connie.”
“Connie?”
As the man nodded, a wild scream
rang through the hangar and a ten-year old
boy ran to meet them with all the eagerness
of his age.
“Here you are! Great!”
Seeing the old man’s look, the boy
stopped shouting and straightened his
shoulders, extending a serious little hand
towards Benjy.
“Constantin Toretti-Yasharin, at your
service.”
“That’s Connie,” explained Jeremiah.
“My daughter’s son. His parents died, so he
lives with me. And you are…?”
As one, all six member’s of Benjy’s
shouted: “We’re Benjy’s – the biggest small
interstellar circus in the Universe!”
Both the man and the boy seemed a
bit startled by this unexpected publicity
stunt.
“What’s a circus?” asked Connie.
John, the younger of the twins, exchanged a
look with his brother and ran towards the
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wall. His speed allowed him to make a few
steps fly-like vertically, opposing the
station’s artigrav, then he made a back flip in
the air and landed securely on his brother’s
shoulders.
“That’s a circus,” he said, jumping
back to the ground.
“And, if I may add,” interrupted
Pieter, reaching behind the boy’s ear and
taking out a big bunch of artificial flowers,
“this also.” He presented the flowers to the
boy, covered them with a handkerchief, took
the bunch back and blew, showing the
empty hand that was all that was left under
the blood-red silk.
“And there are animals, too,” said
Belle, “only I’m afraid I can’t show them to
you before I’ve fed them.”
“Wow,” said the boy. “That’s
amazing.”
“Well,” Benjy turned to the old man,
“we’re sorry to impose on you in this way,
but our batteries are empty and we seem to
have some slight trouble with our
computer…”
“Yes,” Chico added, “you said yours
isn’t working properly either.”
“That’s right,” said Jeremiah. “All
communication systems have gone on
strike.”
“Really? That’s strange – the same
thing happened to our ship. How long has
this been going on?”
“Oh, this is one of the oldest stations,
you know. Things break down every now
and then.” Jeremiah shrugged almost
apologetically. “Never mind that. There’s
nothing to communicate, anyway. But here,
let me offer you some refreshments – I’m
sure our supplies are still more varied than
ship food.”
“We’ll be more than glad to accept
your offer,” said Benjy. “And tomorrow
morning, we will put a show for you.”
The crew exchanged curious looks.
Benjy was a nice man, but volunteering to
do a show for two…
“Well, what?” Benjy shrugged.
“We’re a circus, aren’t we?”
And so, the next morning found all
the crew at work, setting up their one and
only ring. Belle was showing Connie her
lion and two lionesses, and the twins were
warming up for their trapeze act. Chico, his
face already made up, fidgeted for a while,
then finally got up and went to Pieter’s
cabin.
“Listen,” he said. “There’s something
strange going on.”
“What do you mean?” Pieter was
checking out all the equipment in his
magician’s tails.
“I don’t know, exactly.”
“Well, if you’re talking about all
communication systems going down, I think
you’re right. But since our collective
knowledge of such things could be engraved
on one of Cleo’s claws, I don’t really see
what we can do about it. Do you?”
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Chico shrugged. “I don’t know. Why
isn’t the man more upset? He lives here, for
God’s sake! If I lived on the edge of the
known universe, I’d get crazy with worry if
my communication system went down.”
“Well, if I lived in this station I’d go
crazy period, but I can see what you mean.
Maybe he’s gaga.”
“Did he seem so?”
“Not really.” Pieter finished his
dressing and checked himself in the full-
length mirror. “But then, you never know.”
“Some help you are.”
Pieter smiled as he put Cleo into her
hiding place. “On the other hand,” he said,
“we’ve been in space for three years now.
Maybe it’s time we took a good long rest on
firm ground somewhere.”
“You think I’m growing paranoid?”
Pieter just looked at him with his
eyebrows raised. Finally, Chico gave up
with a sigh.
“Alright, maybe I am,” he said. “But
this isn’t what we usually meet at the
stations.”
“This is one of the oldest borders, you
know. Practically all the spreading has gone
in other directions. That could account for
some things.”
“Like an old man being the only one
left in charge, okay. But not for the
communication systems. Both on the
Bastard and on the station.”
“Coincidences do happen.”
“Do I have to like them?” asked
Chico. Before Pieter had time to answer,
Benjy knocked on the door.
“We’re going in five,” he shouted.
“And that goes for both of you Siamese!”
Chico frowned. “Do I always end up
here before the show?”
Pieter shook his head seriously. “Of
course you don’t. Sometimes I go across to
your room. Let’s go.”
The ring was set in all the glory it
possessed, just like for any other show. If it
weren’t for the single bench that faced the
arena, no one could have guessed the
amount of audience the Benjy’s were
preparing for. Jeremiah was already in his
seat, but Connie was nowhere in sight. In his
MC suit, Benjy peered through the curtain.
“Where’s the rest of the audience?” he
asked.
Jeremiah looked around with a
confused expression on his face. “He was
with your animal trainer. I thought he would
come down with you.”
Muttering curses under his breath,
Benjy went behind the curtain, shouting for
Belle. But before he found her, Connie came
running from the opposite direction.
“Can we wait just a little longer?” he
shouted. “They haven’t come yet!”
Jeremiah let out a sound of both
surprise and anger, but the boy ran past him
and caught Benjy’s sleeve.
“Please? Just a few minutes. Please!”
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Benjy automatically looked at his
crew for reaction.
“Gods!”
Jeremiah let Connie go and let out a
deep, desperate sigh. Chico looked at him
and said: “Suppose you tell us what’s going
on?”
Chico frowned and leaned towards
the boy. “Who hasn’t come?”
“My friends. I told them about you,
and they so want to see you, only they
haven’t arrived yet… But they’re real close,
it’ll only be a moment or so…”
“Yes,” answered the old man. “I don’t
see that I have a choice.”
“What friends, Connie? How could
you tell them about us? Who are they?”
Half an hour later, the entire crew of
Benjy’s was gathered behind the curtain,
ready to start the opening parade.
Jeremiah’s hurried steps approached
them, and Connie suddenly froze, as if
afraid.
“Nervous?” asked Pieter in a low
voice.
“What’s going on?” asked the station
keeper. “What has Connie been telling you?
The boy’s constantly inventing stories, you
know,” he added, taking his grandson’s
hand. “He’s lonely. Don’t pay any attention
to it.”
Chico laughed. “Of course I’m
nervous. How many times in your life have
you performed for alien life-forms who
prefer to keep quiet about their existence but
wouldn’t let an old man and a boy be lonely
on a station?”
“No, grandpa,” said Connie. “It’s too
late. I’ve told them.”
“Well,” said Pieter, straightening his
top-hat, “who cares who’s in the audience?
We’re a circus, aren’t we?”
“I know you have, Connie. Now
you’ll just apologise to the gentlemen for
wasting their time and… you mean them?”
Connie nodded. “They’re coming.”
“What, now? You can’t be serious!”
“They wanted to see the show.”
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One of the newcomers to the genre, Dario Rukavina quickly established himself as a relevant author
within the younger generation of Croatian SF writers. He was born in 1972 and lives in Zagreb.
Dario Rukavina
A PASSAGE TO THE EAST
It was morning and they were sailing
the skies above the Atlantic when Mr.
D’Alema rose from the table, went to the
cheese platter, sliced a thick piece of
ementaler cheese, brought it back on a
saucer, put it in front of himself, turned to
Michael and said with a wink:
- The Universe is as curved and hollow
as this cheese.
Michael looked inquiringly at his
father, who did not so much as blinked. He
only wiped his mouth with a napkin and
took a sip of coffee. Michael then turned
towards his mother and asked:
- Mommy?
A knot of shame in the pit of Mrs.
Moorcock’s stomach swells each time a
child comes to her with questions. They call
her mummy, and they don’t look at her
while speaking to her but peek out the
window in a jolly conversation with clouds,
like, you know, I’m not really speaking to
you, mummy, I’m just thinking out loud and
if you do not want to be disturbed, hell,
that’s okay. Even the eldest daughter, Carol,
rambles on and on while seductively
twisting her neck towards a pair of young
aristocrats, who are silently encouraging her
with meaningful glances over the edge of
spread-out newspapers. If she did not
respond to the children’s whining, as if she
were a kind of train station PA, he usually
said, Darling, restrain the children or But
darling, why won’t you answer them when
they’re asking so nicely. She put butter and
cranberry jam on his toast. Dropped a
sugarcube into his coffee. Stirred it. Wiped
Michael’s smutty mouth and warned Carol
to sit properly, as befits a young lady.
Admonished Martin for smudging the
zeppelin window with his fingers.
- What in God’s name are you doing,
Martin?
- I’m diverting a flock of birds from
flying into a propeller… or over Russia -
Martin responded in a heavy voice, as if he
were putting a lot of effort in what he did. – I
want to save them and earn some good
karma.
The men at the next table were
exchanging glances in silence. Mrs.
Moorcock was afraid that they might be
Russian anarchists. Such men, they plant
bombs and kill innocent folk.
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24
- Leave the birds alone, Martin… – she
groaned, ill at ease. – How would you feel if
your soul were in a bird, and someone on a
zeppelin is disturbing you while you fly the
skies freely?
Mr. Moorcock made a sour face.
- There goes your mother, Martin, with
another bright idea. And they just keep
getting brighter. There’s no immortal soul
trapped in a bird’s body! – he leaned towards
his daughter and muttered icily: Would you
please shut up already?
- Let the children speak, my dear sir -
Mr. D’Alema, the Italian industrialist, cut in
again, – children are the ones closest to the
truth, but I think that immortality is when
someone does something that will truly
make them Immortal. Take Einstein for
example! -
Mr. Moorcock sat awhile clutching the
edge of the table, then he took a napkin,
wiped his mouth and said: – We are done
with our breakfast. We are going to our
room. – Fuming the entire way, he said that
he had nothing to discuss with a bloody
relativistic provocateur.
Zacharia Moorcock was a Teslocrat,
Senior Supervisory Engineer, Second Class.
He is traveling with his family to Croatia, on
a pilgrimage to pay his respects to Nikola
Tesla, the great inventor and founder of the
League of Teslocratic Domains (LTD), and
to receive a promotion. A Teslocrat of his
rank, he hadn’t had much chance to travel a
lot, let alone argue with proponents of
Relativism. This was why Zacharia
Moorcock wasted not a moment to cross
swords with someone of their kind.
Around noon, Michael drove his remote
control robot to the saloon door where the
gents had been enjoying brandy and cigars
as much as the bitter bickering about the
warping of space, wormholes and the
amount of energy required to open an
interdimensional portal. He could hear his
father shouting: I piss, beg pardon, my dear
sir, on your exotic matter, ha, ha, ha.
His father was twitching most
peculiarly, like his robot. His hand was pale
as he clutched the glass feverishly, and he
stared in anxious anticipation for the glass to
burst into pieces in his hand.
During that time, Mrs. Moorcock and
Martin strolled to the bridge. They did not
care for these never ending squabbles
amongst Teslocrats and Einsteinians at all.
Dynamic theory or the Unified field theory?
Martin had decided that he would go
into bird-observation business anyway, once
he’s grown. They were watching the tame
landscape of Provence passing underneath,
when suddenly a dove bumped against the
open window of the ship’s bridge, fell into
the room and lay still.
- Don’t touch that thing! – Mrs.
Moorcock screamed at Martin as he was
bending to observe the bird more closely.
Even with her Teslocratic upbringing, she
was deeply superstitious and her memory
still rang with the words of her Nan, a
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25
Romanian emigrant, saying that the bird
flying into a room was an omen of death of
a loved one. Disquiet came over her – the
thought that the Russian nobles were in fact
anarcho-terrorists capable of abducting her
or, God forbid, blowing up the airship, saw
her to her room, a bout of pill-popping and,
finally, dreamland. After finding himself
alone, Martin lifted the wounded bird gently
up and hid it in his shirt.
Before lunch, the parlor debate was
momentarily interrupted by a prima donna
who was returning from a successful
American tour and decided to treat them all
to the Brunnhilda passage from Wagner’s
Die Walkure.
War es so schmählich aria was drilling
painful wormholes in Mr. Moorcock’s
migraine, far more painful than the ones
caused by Mr. D’Alema theory of ripping
through the web of space-time continuum,
when he noticed Carol missing. Sneaking
out of the parlor, he found her accompanied
by the young Russian. She was clinging to
him like English ivy. Blood rushed to his
head. He turned on his heel, stormed back to
the parlor and threw himself in a seat.
- Your daughter, Adela… – he was
hissing at his wife under the breath – She
flirts shamelessly with that damn Russian
lowlife! It’s your blood, Adela… Balkan,
gypsy blood!
After docking at Vienna, they took a
short sightseeing tour of the city and some
new passengers boarded. Upon leaving, they
were aghast to find out that Carol and the
young Russian count were missing.
Moorcock was furious and insisted that
the zeppelin should re-dock, but the captain
led him to the radio-room and reported the
disappearance to the police. Moorcock
exercised his influence as Senior Engineer,
Second class, to speak to the Vienna Police
Commander himself, upon which he got
firm reassurances that Carol would be
discreetly escorted to Zagreb in the most
expedient manner. That calmed him down
somewhat. The web of Teslocratic agencies
was widespread and strong, and nobody
could slip through undetected – least of all, a
big-mouthed American girl accompanied by
a Russian anarchist.
A warm summer day welcomed them to
Zagreb. They were staying at the Esplanade
Hotel. They took a stroll around the Dolac
marketplace and were delighted by the taste
of štrukli. In the hotel, at the reception desk,
they were handed a memo from the Vienna
Police Dpt. which said they could pick up
Carol at the train station, as she was arriving
on the first train from Vienna.
The train noiselessly hovered over the
tracks and Mrs. Moorcock brooded on the
wonderful, romantic times when one could
see lithe figures of men emerging out of the
steam of a railway station. She loved
railway stations, the old era, and the sterility
of Teslocracy mortified her. Carol was
escorted off the train by two agents, doped
up on meds, her grin as wide as one on a
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26
rag-doll’s painted-on face. They boarded the
train going to the town of Gospić, from
where they proceeded to Smiljan and the
Nikola Tesla Memorial Center.
Zacharia Moorcock got ready for the
commemoration: he went through the ritual
bathing and dove feeding, intoned guild
chants at the temple, entrusted the patent
officer with his most secret ideas. Michael
was dressed in an azure jacket with golden
epaulettes; he too would be attending the
ceremony, going through his rite of passage
and joining the guild’s youth as Moorcock’s
successor. Michael shone as the midsummer
sun, rubbing the robot with his sleeve, and
then the Procurator of Teslocratic Youth
rounded up the boys and led them into the
Memorial Room.
The Memorial Room was thick with
dusty hallucinations. Entering, Michael felt
his life accelerating, coming off the walls -
old photographs: New York docks, men in
uniforms, special occasions, gatherings,
cracks of happiness framed. Tesla and
Einstein in an argument, Tesla and Swami
Vivekananda in the lab, Tesla showing him
the mathematical confirmation of Vedic
scriptures. Tesla not giving over the
contracts to Westinghouse, but giving them
to his people. Coming back to Croatia. The
speech in Zagreb. The people pooling in
gold to continue his research. The promotion
of the Dynamic Theory of Gravity.
Receiving the Nobel Prize. Tesla donating
resources for the reconstruction of the
Tunguska region. The Marconi trial. War.
Squadrons emerging out of the forests of
Lika armed with death rays. Hitler’s
factories burning, Pearl Harbor in flames,
the scalar wave hits Tokyo. Tesla’s United
Nations speech. The dissolution of the UN
Council. The founding conference of the
Teslocratic bloc. Peace under the
sponsorship of Teslocrats. Tesla retiring.
Tesla feeding a white dove. Tesla’s funeral.
Michael experienced a strange sensation
while watching these images. It occurred to
him that their sequence on the wall should
not be changed. If they were disarranged, if
those invisible threads of awkwardness were
to break, whole worlds might perish. Slide
on them slowly, as a spider, toward the
center of all things.
Upon exiting the Memorial Room, they
boarded the open-top scenic buses powered
by aether, and were underway towards the
Plitvice Lakes National Park. Somewhere
along the way, Carol came to, drugs wearing
off.
- Momma, momma, they shot him like a
dog… – she started crying.
- Have no fear, dear child, you’ll meet
yet again, in some other, happier
incarnation, – Adela whispered, reading the
instructions for the proper dosage on a little
blue box and smiling sourly at women as if
waiting for their silent acceptance. Her
words were drowned in the engineers’
booming song which resounded in the front
of the column, just to get wind-blown all
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over the mountains of the Lika region. For a
time, Carol regarded the astonishingly
beautiful landscapes of Lika, the country of
wolves and lakes, with a dull look, asking
herself how it was possible that Tesla was
born in such a backwater; a second later, she
was sleeping like a log and she did not wake
during the rest of the way to the Plitvice
Lakes. There they joined the procession. On
foot. From the topmost lakes, from one
powerplant to the next, all the way to the
main waterfall – the magnificent concrete
monster where the dazzling ceremony was
held.
Zacharia
Moorcock
hugged
his
colleagues, said his farewells, handed out
his business cards inviting them to visit him
in America; Martin gathered crumbs for his
wounded dove; Carol stared somewhere
eastward with a glazed look, propped up by
her mother; and Michael, eyes filled with
admiration, watched his father.
His attention was caught by the stands
along the pathway. On them, gold-crusted
cheeses ripened.
- Mommy, look, cheese! – he cried.
A heavyset native of Lika, with a thick
moustache, a wide toothless grin, a lopsided
red cap and a sheep-fur waistcoat, sliced a
chunk and offered it off the knife-blade.
At the end of it, they received a small
chunk of concrete chipped off the
powerplant – as a souvenir, a reminder of
times past when each and every energy
quant was needed for the young Teslocracy
to survive; also that everything comes and
goes and that nothing of this world lasts
forever, save for great men and their ideas
which will be written for all eternity in
Akasha, the Great Book of Universe.
- Mommy, it squeaks on the teeth! – said
Michael, chewing.
And he was positively certain that the
Universe was not as hollow and hole-riddled
as the heretics used to say, but that it was
bent and looped back, squeaking along the
way, exactly as a Lika cheese.
(Translated by Miheala Marija Perković and
Tihomir Maček)
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Živko Prodanović
SF haiku
seven galaxies
seven great admirals
one war
golden birds of Orion
ineffectual running -
men have come
the space games -
bravo, the very first medal
for the Earth
worried keepers -
the ninth human being
ran away from zoo
robot’s eyes
in the dark deepness’s
a drop of oil
great revolt
robots disclaiming
to change their heads
the end of war
victorious robots
separating defeated
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Aleksandar Žiljak
SCIENCE FICTION IN CROATIA
1. The Beginnings
Although the elements of fantastic
and speculative (as far as science in the
modern sense is concerned) in the Croatian
literature can be traced back to the years
immediately before and after World War I
(for instance, the novel Crveni ocean (The
Red Ocean – 1918) by Marija Jurić -
Zagorka and some stories by Vladimir
Nazor), it is generally agreed today that the
first true Croatian SF novel was Na Pacifiku
2255. (On The Pacific In 2255) by Milan
Šufflay, first serialized in 1924 and re-issued
in a book-form in 1998.
In 1932, Mato Hanžeković published
Gospodin čovjek (A Man Of Rank), a utopia
about a group of people rebuilding the
civilization destroyed in a new world war.
Even more novels and stories appeared in
Zagreb during the 1920s and 1930s, mostly
by authors using pen-names, initials, or
altogether omitting to sign themselves.
Claimed by some authorities to be the best
are Muri Massanga (1927) by Mladen
Horvat and a series of novels by Aldion
Degal (most likely a pseudonym): Atomska
raketa (The Atomic Rocket), Zrake smrti
(The Death Rays) and Smaragdni skarabej
(The Emerald Scarab), all dating from early
1930s. Also worthy of mention is the novel
Majstor Omega osvaja svijet (The Omega
Master Conquers The World) by Stan Rager,
serialized in 1940. Stan Rager was a
pseudonym used by Stanko Radovanović
and Zvonimir Furtinger (whom we’ll
encounter later) writing in tandem. Very
little is known of these texts today, most of
them appearing in newspapers and
magazines. They are seldom available and
they need to be more thoroughly studied and
critically evaluated. The same goes for some
proto-SF works dating as far back as the
Renaissance.
Better appreciated are the early
Croatian SF comics from the 1930s. The
first-ever was Gost iz svemira (The Guest
From Outer Space) by Božidar Rašić and
Leontije Bjelski, published in 1935 in
Zagreb, followed by Krešimir Kovačić’s and
Andrija Maurović’s Ljubavnica s Marsa
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(The Mistress From Mars) and Podzemna
carica (The Underground Empress).
2. Croatian SF Comes Of Age
Some SF stories by Croatian authors,
still using pseudonyms, were published even
during World War II. Immediate post-war
years, with the war-winning Communist
Party becoming the ruling political force in
Yugoslavia and Croatia, represented a short
lull in the continuity of the Croatian SF.
However, the 1950s saw an increase in
number of translated novels (by American,
Russian and European authors) published by
various Yugoslav publishers.
As far as Croatia is concerned, late
1950s and early to mid-1960s were
definitely marked by Mladen Bjažić and
Zvonimir Furtinger, writing in tandem. Both
stemmed from the juvenile magazine Plavi
vjesnik, where Bjažić was the editor, while
Furtinger contributed stories (most notable
being his SF novelette Vila na otoku – The
Villa on an Island) and scripted comics.
Their first collaborative effort was Osvajač
2 se ne javlja (The Conqueror 2 Does Not
Reply), first published in 1959. Svemirska
nevjesta (The Space Bride), Varamunga -
tajanstveni grad (Varamunga – The
Mysterious City) and the juvenile novel
Zagonetni stroj profesora Kružića (The
Mysterious Machine Of Professor Kružić)
followed in 1960, Mrtvi se vraćaju (The
Dead Return) in 1965 and Ništa bez Božene
(Nothing Without Božena – being an updated
version of The Mysterious Machine Of
Professor Kružić) in 1970. Well-written,
these novels deal with cosmic catastrophes,
aliens visiting Earth, artificial intelligence
and robotics, and various machines, such as
matter replicator and anti-gravity device.
Character-oriented,
action-packed
and
spiced with humor and fine irony, they often
include elements of the mystery genre.
Bjažić and Furtinger novels were the
pioneering works in Croatian science
fiction, introducing many new and fresh
ideas and it is no wonder that they were very
popular. Being reprinted several times, they
undoubtedly influenced many fans and
subsequent writers, which makes them even
more important. Both Bjažić and Furtinger
were very prolific authors of popular and
juvenile literature, but Furtinger remained
more faithful to SF, writing a considerable
number of SF stories and radio-plays on his
own.
After Bjažić and Furtinger, the second
most important author was Angelo Ritig
with his novels Sasvim neobično buđenje
(Quite an Unusual Awakening – 1961) and
Ljubav u neboderu (Love in the Skyscraper -
1965). As opposed to Bjažić and Furtinger,
who were concerned with action and humor,
Ritig was more interested in psychological
development of his characters facing
technologies such as brain transfer and a
mind-reading device. It’s a shame that he
wrote only two science fiction novels,
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because he was successfully combining
mature literary style with interesting
scientific speculations and convincing
futuristic settings.
Silvije Ružić published the juvenile
Uspavani diktator (The Sleeping Dictator)
in 1961, while Milan Nikolić, otherwise a
very prolific and skilful crime and mystery
writer, ventured into SF with his 1960 novel
Zovem Jupiter … Beležite (Calling Jupiter
… Take Notes).
Other Croatian authors of that period
were mostly writing SF novels for children,
the tradition continuing to the present day.
3. The Sirius Years
The crucial year in the history of the
Croatian SF was 1976. In July of that year,
the first Croatian SF magazine Sirius was
started. Sirius was published by Zagreb
newspaper and magazine publisher Vjesnik,
one of the largest such companies in
socialist Yugoslavia. It was started by
Borivoj Jurković (its first editor) and Damir
Mikuličić, no doubt inspired by a growing
interest in SF manifested in Yugoslavia in
the early 1970s. Despite severe economic
difficulties in the 1980s Yugoslavia
(resulting in inflation and chronic shortage
of paper), Sirius maintained a regular
monthly rhythm throughout most of the
period of its publication, lasting until
December 1989, when it reached issue
number 163/164. It had a circulation
reaching 30 000 in its heyday, and was
elected twice (in 1980 and 1984) the best
European SF magazine. After Jurković
edited Sirius for more than 100 issues, he
was succeeded by Hrvoje Prćić, although
Milivoj Pašiček was signed as an editor for
some time.
Sirius was modeled after American
SF magazines and published stories of
various lengths, mostly by English-
speaking, but also Soviet and European
(particularly French) authors. In more than
thirteen years, Sirius introduced the Croatian
readers to the stories by the best SF writers
in the world, authors both classic and recent
ones. Sirius was also opened to various
theoretical works, reviews, biographical
texts, interviews and fandom news, and all
this had considerable influence on the
development of SF in Croatia.
Most important of all, Sirius offered
Croatian (and Yugoslav) writers an
opportunity to publish. Having the full-color
cover and later even black-and-white story
illustrations, Sirius also became a sort of
exhibition hall of the SF art.
Several writers became well-known
on the pages of Sirius. While Branko Belan
and Zvonimir Furtinger were the best of
those already established on the Croatian
cultural scene (Belan was a film director and
lecturer, as well as writer, and Furtinger was
a journalist and writer, both being in their
mid-sixties when Sirius was started),
Predrag Raos was certainly the greatest
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among the young writers beginning their
career in Sirius. The most prolific Sirius
authors were Branko Pihač and Živko
Prodanović, and we should also mention
Neven
Antičević,
Radovan
Devlić
(otherwise a comics author), Darije Đokić,
Damir Mikuličić, Slobodan Petrovski,
Zdravko Valjak and many others. The pages
of Sirius also revealed the significant
presence of women-writers, such as Vera
Ivosić-Santo (a.k.a. Veronika Santo), Vesna
Gorše, Biljana Mateljan, Vesna Popović,
Tatjana Vranić and several others. We can
state without any doubt that women
publishing in Sirius were on the average
superior writers to their male colleagues,
both
thematically
and
stylistically,
particularly when their relatively small
outputs are considered.
Although it is really impossible to
draw any common denominator for some
500 Croatian SF stories (including short-
short ones) published in Sirius, some trends
are obvious. For instance, it’s easy to notice
a large number of anti-utopias, most often
post-nuclear. This was an obvious comment
on the Cold War, as well as the Yugoslav
single-party socialist society. (We must
point out, however, that socialism in
Yugoslavia was much more liberal than in
other East European countries, let alone
USSR. Yugoslavia was not a member of the
Warsaw Pact, and indeed maintained a
delicate balance between West and East,
being opened to both.) Other classic SF
subjects and subgenres were also present,
such as space-opera, hard-SF, first contact,
time travel and ESP. On the other hand,
some of the then-popular subgenres were
almost completely missing, such as
cyberpunk. There was also a total lack of
alternative histories and parallel world
stories. Due to the strict editorial orientation
towards SF, encouraged by contemporary
readers, there was no fantasy or horror on
the pages of Sirius.
Between 1976 and 1989 – years now
dubbed the Sirius period – some very
important SF novels appeared.
Predrag Raos published his two-part
epic Brodolom kod Thule (Shipwrecked At
Thula) in 1979. Mnogo vike nizašto (Much
Ado About Nothing) followed in 1985 and
Nul effort in 1990. Shipwrecked at Thula,
almost 850 pages long, is the most important
and possibly the best Croatian science
fiction novel so far. Describing the utopian,
but stagnant human society 600 years in the
future that sends the first faster-than-light
expedition to Alpha Centaury, and the
disaster striking this expedition, it is
brilliantly written and never boring despite
its length. It is at the same time great
literature and great science fiction, firmly
based in sound scientific speculation.
Shipwrecked at Thula, Sirius stories, Much
Ado About Nothing (about an expedition to
Mars) and Nul effort (about a space
expedition caught in a middle of an
intergalactic war) firmly established Predrag
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Raos as one of the finest Croatian writers.
In the mid-1980s, Neven Orhel wrote
two medical-SF novels, Uzbuna na odjelu za
rak (Alert At The Cancer Ward) and
Ponoćni susret (The Midnight Encounter).
Branko Belan published the anti-utopian
Utov dnevnik (Ut’s Diary) in 1982,
incorporating some of his stories previously
published in Sirius. In the same year, Damir
Mikuličić published a collection of his
stories entitled O. Hrvoje Hitrec, well-
known Croatian writer, published his SF
novel Ur in 1982, and is also famous for his
SF novel for children Eko eko from 1978.
Some other mainstream writers also
incorporated the SF and fantastic elements
in their novels, most notably Pavao Pavličić
and Goran Tribuson, two of the most
prominent and prolific of several so-called
Croatian Borgesians appearing on the
literary scene in the early 1970s.
So far the only two Croatian SF
movies also appeared in this period. The
first was Izbavitelj (The Rat Savior) in 1977,
directed by Krsto Papić and awarded at the
Trieste SF Film Festival. The second was
Dušan Vukotić’s SF comedy Posjetioci iz
galaksije Arkana (Visitors From The Arkana
Galaxy), shot in 1980.
4. Future With Futura
The untimely death of Sirius in
December 1989 is still mourned by many.
Although there were rumors in the following
year or two that Sirius will be revived,
nothing ever came out of it. In the
meantime, the clouds of war were gathering
over Croatia…
The early 1990s, marked by the fall of
socialism and the violent break-up of
Yugoslavia, seemed hardly an appropriate
time for the Sirius successor. So it came out
of the blue when, in late autumn 1992, a
small Zagreb graphic design and publishing
company Bakal introduced Futura to the
news-stands. Less than a year after the war
in Croatia was stopped by an uneasy cease-
fire, and with war at full swing in Bosnia
and Herzegovina, here we were, bewildered,
holding a new SF-magazine in our hands!
Basically, Futura was not very
different from Sirius. It was a monthly and it
opened its pages to the Croatian artists and
writers almost immediately. However, the
times had changed. Futura’s circulation was
much lower than that of Sirius. Denied the
support of the major state-owned publisher
and faced with a general drop in income and
living standard in Croatia, Futura had
financial problems. It changed several
editors (they were: Vlatko Jurić-Kokić,
Krsto A. Mažuranić, Mihaela Velina,
Davorin Horak and Milena Benini) and was
sold to another publisher several years ago.
Eventually, it became very irregular, not
appearing at the news-stands for months.
Apparently defunct, Futura currently (July
2008) stands at issue number 129.
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Futura had similar importance for the
Croatian SF as did Sirius. It became the
place where authors could publish.
However, in 1995 Futura stopped being the
only such place.
5. New Vibrations
In spring of that year, a new and
important project in the Croatian SF was
started. The SF-club SFera from Zagreb
issued the first of their story-collections,
entitled Zagreb 2004 and edited by Darko
Macan. Zagreb 2004 collected stories by
young (the oldest being 32) writers, about
Zagreb 10 years in the future. The collection
was actually prepared in 1994, hence the
reference in the title, but was somewhat
delayed, and the primary subject of the
stories was obviously the war in Croatia, at
that moment still unresolved. Although
many featured writers had already
published, mostly in fanzines and Futura,
this collection proved that a new generation
of SF authors had arrived. At the same time,
it seemed that the Sirius generation had
mostly faded away, at least in their capacity
as writers.
Not that nothing was heard of them.
Predrag Raos was vehement as a member of
the opposition against President Tuđman’s
authoritative rule. However, only two of the
books he published in the 1990s were true
SF: Mayerling and the children’s novel Od
rata do zvijezda (From The War To The
Stars), both from 1996. Raos is also a well-
known translator and controversial public
personality, always opposing any authority.
Zdravko Valjak collected his old Sirius
stories in Plastična duša (The Plastic Soul),
published in 1997. Živko Prodanović
published the somewhat out-of-date Tamara
in 2000 and Smrt među rimskim ruševinama
(The Death Among The Ruins Of Rome) in
2003. Damir Mikuličić became an important
SF and popular science (Einstein, Hawking,
etc.) publisher. Neven Antičević, too,
became one of the most important Croatian
publishers. Vesna Gorše, also one of the
Sirius writers, but today better known as an
ethno-jazz musician, collected some of her
stories in the book Dar (The Gift), published
in 2003.
In the meantime, SFera continued
producing its collections, timing them to
coincide with the annual SFeraKon
convention held in Zagreb. After Zagreb
2004, Dnevnici entropije (The Entropy
Diaries) followed in 1996. Then, there were
Kvantni portali imaginacije (Quantum
Portals Of Imagination), Zagreb 2014,
Krhotine svjetova (Fragments Of The
Worlds), Dvije tisuće šarenih aliena (Two
Thousand Gaudy Aliens), Jutra boje potopa
(Deluge-Colored Mornings), Alternauti
(Alternauts),
Djeca
olujnih
vjekova
(Children Of The Stormy Eras), Zagreb
2094, Kap crne svjetlosti (A Drop Of Black
Light), Zagrob (Aftergrave – a collection of
horror stories), Trinaesti krug bezdana (The
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35
Thirteenth Circle of Abyss) and, finally, in
2008, Zmajev zlatni svitak (The Dragon’s
Golden Scroll). The editor of – and the
driving force behind – most of these
collections was Darko Macan, alone or
together with Tatjana Jambrišak and,
recently, Darko Vrban.
Quantum Portals Of
Imagination was edited
by Davorin Horak,
while Tatjana Jambrišak
and Darko Vrban edited
A Drop Of Black Light,
Zagrob
and
The
Thirteenth Circle of
Abyss. They were joined
by Mihaela Marija
Perković for editing
work on The Dragon’s
Golden Scroll.
Because of the
careful selection and
editing, these coll-
ections became the
cutting edge of the
modern Croatian SF.
The stories published in
them were on average much better than
those in Futura, firmly establishing the new
authors.
Interesting comparisons can now be
made between stories in Futura and SFera
collections, and those published in Sirius.
The approach to various themes and subjects
became more modern and diverse in 1990s.
Young writers now pay more attention to
characters and plotline. The stories are no
more used just as an excuse to elaborate
some SF idea, which was a frequent
shortcoming of numerous Sirius stories.
New generation of authors devoted more
time to literary
qualities of their
texts,
employing
modern
story-
telling techniques,
some even showing
tendency towards
radical literary ex-
periments. Finally,
the 1990s authors
freely introduced
Croatian
themes,
characters and sett-
ings into their
stories. Why was
the majority (not all
and not always, but
majority
never-
theless) of Sirius
authors reluctant to
do this, even when
appropriate, opting instead for stereotyped
American and/or European characters or
choosing some neutral settings, remains
open to discussion. Whatever the reason, it
seems as if the future finally started
happening to Croatians in Croatia, and this
is a considerable and very important
quantum step, implying a further maturing
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36
of the Croatian SF that took place in the
1990s.
One of the results of the SFera books
was the spreading of the story-collection
bug from Zagreb to Istria, so, starting in
2002, short-short story-collections were
promoted at annual Istrakon conventions
held in the small town of Pazin. These
collections are: Tvar koja nedostaje (The
Missing Matter), Svijet tamo iza (The World
Beyond), Bolja polovica (The Better Half),
Ispod i iznad (Below And Above), Sami na
svijetu (Alone In The World), Krivo stvoreni
(Wrongly Created) and Dobar ulov (The
Good Catch). In the last three years,
additional collections are prepared for the
annual The Festival Of Fantastic Literature,
also held in Pazin. The books appearing so
far are Vampirske priče (Vampire Tales),
Priče o starim bogovima (Tales of Old
Gods) and this year’s Priče o divovima
(Tales of Giants).
Another story-collection, Priča o
Anđeli Novak (The Story of Anđela Novak)
was published in Osijek in 2006. In the past
two years, Irena Rašeta edited story
collections blog.sf and Bludućnost (The
Future Lust), thus beginning an ongoing
TranSFuzija (TranSFusion) series.
Beside Futura and the annual
collections, there were several mainstream
literary magazines where an occasional SF
story could be found, particularly the
defunct Plima that regularly published
stories and plays with elements of the
fantastic. Since late 1998, short-short stories
have been published in the juvenile Sunday-
supplement of the Jutarnji list newspapers,
and we must not forget various fanzines.
By 2003, ten years of writing and
publishing resulted in enough material for
some authors to plan their own story-
collections. The edition SFera was initiated,
with four story-collections: Duh novog
svijeta (Spirit Of The New World) by
Tatjana Jambrišak, Purgeri lete u nebo
(Burgers Fly Up To The Sky) by Igor
Lepčin, Teksas Kid (i još neka moja braća)
(Texas Kid (And Other Brothers Of Mine))
by Darko Macan and Slijepe ptice (Blind
Birds) by Aleksandar Žiljak.
This project was continued in 2004,
with another series of four books: Najbolji
na svijetu (The Best In The World) by Zoran
Krušvar, Preko rijeke (Across The River) by
Dalibor Perković, Čuvari sreće (Keepers Of
Happiness) by Zoran Pongrašić and Frulaš
(The Piper) by Zoran Vlahović.
Finally, in 2005, the third set of four
books was published. These were Jednorog i
djevica (The Unicorn And The Virgin) by
Milena Benini, Jeftine riječi (Cheap Words)
by Goran Konvični, Zvjezdani riffovi (Star
Riffs) by Krešimir Mišak and Zeleno sunce,
crna spora (Green Sun, Black Spore) by
Danilo Brozović.
This edition brought together twelve
of the best and most prolific of the new
generation of Croatian SF authors. It also
spans the entire spectrum of interests and
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37
themes covered in their stories. However,
compared to writers in the West, the
individual output of Croatian authors is
quite small. The reason is simple: SF writing
in Croatia is not commercial and cannot be
turned into a profession. Therefore, it is
merely a hobby for most of the authors. This
also results in writers who show up with
only a story or two and then disappear for
good, a phenomenon observed as long ago
as the Sirius days. Another consequence
during the 1990s was almost total lack of
true (much less good) SF novels. However,
beginning with the new century, this started
to change. Publishers, previously reluctant
to publish Croatian SF, now show much
more interest. This resulted in a steady
stream of at least one or two very good SF
novels each year.
In 2002, two SF novels appeared, both
including considerable amount of humor.
These were Topli zrak (The Hot Air) by
Davor Slamnig and Ja i Kalisto (Me And
Callisto) by Dejan Šorak. They were
followed by two very good novels for
children, Prsti puni mora (Fingers Full Of
Sea) by Igor Lepčin and Pavo protiv Pave
(Paul vs. Paul) by Darko Macan.
In late 2003, the best Croatian SF
novel in more than a decade was published.
It was Sablja (The Sabre) by Ivan Gavran. A
fast-paced and superbly written space opera
about a group of post-apocalypse Earth
pilots fighting with their F-86 Sabre jets in a
galactic air combat tournament, Sablja
remains a unique blend of space-opera,
military SF and a sharp comment on the war
in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the author being
from Sarajevo.
Another excellent novel appearing in
2003 was Christkind by Boris Dežulović,
otherwise a well-known journalist and
columnist. In 2004, a three-part epic Araton
by Oliver Franić was published, while
Dalibor Perković published his first novel
Sva krv čovječanstva (All The Blood Of
Mankind) in 2005.
Predrag Raos also returned to the SF
scene with his first major novel in years,
Vertikala (The Vertical) from 2006, dealing
with moral dilemmas faced by the designer
of an orbital spacecraft-launch stratodrome.
The Vertical was followed by two story-
collections: Škorpion na jeziku (A Scorpion
on the Tongue) and Hrvatski bog s Marsa
(The Croatian God from Mars). While A
Scorpion on the Tongue collects three of
Raos’s best Sirius novelettes, The Croatian
God from Mars contains humoristic SF,
most of it previously unpublished, editorial
censorship being one of the reasons. His
2007 fantasy novel Let Nancija Konratata
(The Flight of Nancio Konratat) further
confirmed his status.
In 2006, Veselin Gatalo published
Geto (The Ghetto), an action-packed
allegoric vision of future Bosnia and
Herzegovina. His 2007-novel Cafe Oxygen,
while well-written, is probably best
considered a juvenile. Danilo Brozović
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38
caused quite a furor with his 2007 political
cyberpunk novel Bojno polje Istra
(Battlefield Istria), while Marina Jadrejčić -
well-known from the early days of Futura -
published her story-collection Tužna
Madona (Sad Madonna) in 2008. Two SF
serials were also initiated in the past few
years, one being Zoran Vlahović’s
cyberpunk-noir Strijelac (The Shooter), the
other being Lovina
(Prey), created by T.H.
Knight (a pen-name)
and Marin Medić and
combining
vampires
and cyberpunk.
One of most
important events in the
last few years is the first
collection of stories by
Veronika Santo, titled
Vrt pramčanih figura
(The
Figureheads
Garden), published in
2008. While known
from the pages of
Sirius, Veronika Santo,
now living in Rome,
was absent from the
Croatian scene for
almost fifteen years, publishing sporadically
in Serbia. The Figureheads Garden collects
her most important stories, ranging in
subjects from classic SF to Borgesian
fantasy and firmly establishing her as one of
the finest Croatian story-tellers, with very
few peers indeed.
As far as other speculative fiction
genres are considered, fantasy is represented
by several novels so bad they don’t even
desert mentioning. Two notable exceptions
are juvenile Čudesna
krljušt
(The
Miraculous Scale – 1995) by Zvjezdana
Odobašić, and fantasy spoofs by Vanja
Spirin.
Horror scene is
somewhat more lively,
with
the
most
prominent and prolific
author being Viktoria
Faust (a pen-name),
dubbed “the first lady
of Croatian horror”.
Beside
numerous
horror and SF stories
(collected in several
collections),
her
novels include U
anđeoskom liku zvijeri
(In The Angelic Image
Of The Beast – 2000),
Neizgovorena priča
(The Untold Story -
2005), Nasmrt pre-
plašen
(Scared to
Death – 2005) and Anastasia, as well as
numerous books on supernatural.
Denis Peričić collected his horror
stories in Krvavo (The Bloody), published in
2004. In 2006, Zoran Ferić drew a lot of
attention with his novel Vampir (The
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39
Vampire), inspired by actual events. Zoran
Krušvar’s
novel
Izvršitelji
nauma
gospodnjeg (The Executioners of Lord’s
Intention) from 2007 developed into a
multimedia project, involving heavy metal
bands and video artists. Darko Macan
ventured into juvenile horror with his 2007
novel Dlakovuk (The Hairwolf).
6. Translations, Art, Comics, etc.
Some fifteen to twenty SF, fantasy
and horror novels, almost exclusively by
American and British authors, are being
translated annually into the Croatian
language. Despite the 1991 – 1995 war,
books published in Serbia were also
available through various channels.
Naturally, the choice of imported books
(exclusively in English) is much larger.
The SF art, being tied to book and
magazine covers, is not particularly
developed in Croatia. Several artists created
quite an enviable amount of artwork on the
Sirius covers, the best being Miroslav
Sinovčić, Vjekoslav Ivezić and Igor Kordej.
Among the artists producing in some
quantity in the 1990s were Igor Kordej,
Esad T. Ribić and the author of this text.
Karlo
Galeta
and
Robert
Drozd
monopolized the Futura covers for several
years with their 3D computer-art. A much
better computer artist is Goran Šarlija, while
Miljenko Zvonar produced a large body of
SF art, illustrating the already-mentioned
Jutarnji list’s Sunday-supplement stories.
Željko Pahek also returned to the Croatian
art scene, working mostly in Serbia before
the war. He is famous for his SF-art, but also
for his hilarious comics, spoofing almost
every SF-cliché known to mankind.
We have already seen that the
tradition of SF comics in Croatia dates back
to the mid-1930s. During the 1950s and
1960s, the best SF-comics authors were
brothers Norbert and Walter Neugebauer,
who also started their career before the
Second World War. Later, in the 1970s and
1980s, the best new authors were Radovan
Devlić, Igor Kordej, Goran Delić and
Krešimir Zimonić. During 1990s, the
situation with comics in Croatia was poor
indeed. No comic magazine succeeded in
running regularly and for any period of time,
so the scene was mostly oriented towards
fanzines and school-magazines. Foreign
comics translated into Croatian were also
quite sparse. Things have recently improved
considerably, however, with new SF comics
being translated into Croatian in ever-
increasing numbers and magazines gaining
some hold. More important, the Croatian
comic artists have a relatively long tradition
of working for foreign publishers. This
continued in the 1990s with the
breakthrough on the American market,
mostly in the franchise-universe and super-
hero series by Dark Horse, Marvel,
Antarctic Press and DC. The best-known
writer in this field is Darko Macan, while
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40
the art was produced by late Edvin
Biuković, Igor Kordej, Goran Parlov, Esad
T. Ribić, Goran Sudžuka, Milan Trenc and
Danijel Žeželj.
The SF-theory work was – until very
recently – sporadic at best, but we must
mention Darko Suvin here. One of the
world’s foremost SF theoreticians, he was
born in 1930 in Zagreb, but, after editing the
anthology Od Lukijana do Lunjika (From
Lukian To Lunik) in 1965, he continued his
career in the USA and Canada from the late
1960s.
7. F Is For Fandom
The organized fandom in Croatia
dates back to 1976 (the year of Sirius!),
when the SF-club SFera was founded in
Zagreb. It was followed by more clubs,
including the StarWars and the Star Trek
club. As is usual, these clubs have been
involved in convention-organizing and
fanzines-publishing, the oldest fanzine being
SFera’s own Parsek, started in 1977. Parsek
reached issue #100 in April 2008, thus being
by far the longest-running fanzine in
Croatia. Considering the current absence of
a monthly magazine, the importance of
Parsek exceeds that of a regular fanzine.
Perhaps the true phenomenon of the
Croatian fandom are conventions. At this
moment, Croatia has annual conventions in
Zagreb, Kutina, Pazin, Opatija, Rijeka and
Osijek. To these, one must add gaming
conventions and LARP events, as well as
the Jules Verne’s Days and The Festival Of
Fantastic Literature, both held annually in
Pazin.
SFeraKon in Zagreb is the oldest
convention in Croatia, running from 1977. It
is organized by the SFera club and is now
held on the last full weekend of April at the
Faculty of Electrical Engineering and
Computer Sciences in Zagreb. SFeraKon
attracts up to 1000 visitors (other
conventions are smaller), offering the usual
convention program, lectures, movies,
costumes and gaming, as well as being an
opportunity for fans and professionals to
meet and exchange ideas. SFera Awards are
also given for the best SF stories of various
lengths, plays, novels, art and life-
achievements. These are the traditional
annual awards, first given in 1981.
In recent years, SFeraKon invited
quite an enviable number of foreign GOHs,
including Martin Easterbrook, Gay Gavriel
Kay, Robert Silverberg and Karen Haber,
Walter Jon Williams, Lois McMaster
Bujold, George R. R. Martin, Ken MacLeod,
Michael Iwoleit (German writer, editor and
translator), Michael Swanwick, Bruce
Sterling and Richard Morgan. This is a
continuation
of
good
international
relationships maintained during the 1970s
and 1980s, when names such as Frederik
Pohl, Jack Williamson, Brian W. Aldiss,
James Gunn, Bob Shaw, Richard D. Nolan,
Sam J. Lundwall, Joe Haldeman, Paolo
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41
Eleuteri Serpieri, Gianfranco Viviani and
Gerald Webb visited Zagreb and/or Croatia,
either as SFeraKon or Eurocon 86 guests, or
on some other official occasion.
Istrakon in Pazin is now firmly
established as the second-largest Croatian
SF convention. Held in March, it is now
running for six consecutive years, and is
attracting some 500 visitors looking for a lot
of fun and good times in the beautiful
surroundings of central Istria. Istrakon
begun inviting foreign GOHs in 2006, the
first being Brian W. Aldiss, Juliet McKenna
and John Anthony West. Essekon in Osijek
is also a convention with some tradition,
while Liburnikon in Opatija and Rikon in
Rijeka are rapidly establishing themselves as
popular events. Unfortunately, Kutikon in
Kutina seems defunct, but there are news of
new conventions and events being planned
all over Croatia.
The spread of Internet provided a
further impetus to the growth of the Croatian
fandom. There is a number of web-sites and
forums dedicated to all aspects of
speculative fiction in the broadest sense, and
there is also a marked rise of the blog scene.
Besides the usual fandom communication,
the Internet scene in general supports new
aspiring writers, through on-line magazines
(most notably, NOSF – www.nosf.net), on-
line literary workshops and blog-stories,
thus alleviating the present lack of a regular
(semi-)professional magazine.
8. Fast Forward Into Future
Science Fiction is now becoming
accepted as part of Croatian popular culture.
The history of SF in Croatia includes two
long-running magazines, important annual
story-collections,
numerous
author
collections and several good novels, all
appearing under difficult, if not severe,
economic and political conditions. Indeed,
younger people in Croatia, including the
author of this text, spent most of their lives
living in some sort of crisis, culminating, but
not ending with the 1991-1995 war. Several
authors are now well-known and established
on the Croatian SF scene, and the next
logical step – already taking place – is their
breakthrough into the international market.
A process of thorough evaluation of
the historic development of SF in Croatia is
now under way. The first major step was Ad
Astra, an anthology of the Croatian SF story
from 1976 to 2006. This mammoth 640-
page book was edited by Tomislav Šakić
and Aleksandar Žiljak and published in
April 2006, after two years of work. It
contains 40 stories by the most important
Croatian SF writers. Also included are
theoretical and historical texts, biographic
notes on authors and other prominent
characters in the Croatian SF, as well as the
reasonably complete bibliography of the
Croatian SF story in the aforementioned 30-
year period.
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42
Another problem addressed by the
editorial tandem Šakić-Žiljak is the lack of
professional-looking SF magazine pub-
lishing Croatian authors. While Parsek
partly filled some vacuum created by the de
facto closure of Futura, something better
was needed. Thus, in
November 2007, the
first issue of UBIQ was
introduced to the public.
UBIQ is a 260-page
literary
magazine
devoted (at least for a
time being,) exclusively
to Croatian writers. It
also publishes theor-
etical and bibliogr-
aphical
texts,
thus
creating a completely
new and desperately
needed niche. Two
issues are planned
annually. UBIQ – issue
2 appearing in April
2008 and issue 3
scheduled for November 2008 – brings high-
quality stories and serious essayistic works
by prominent Croatian writers (including the
come-backs by veterans such as Veronika
Santo, Branko Pihač and Vesna Gorše, as
well as established and new-generation
authors such as Danilo Brozović, Kristijan
Novak, Tereza Rukober, Irena Rašeta, Iva
Šakić-Ristić, Zoran Vlahović, Milena
Benini, Dalibor Perković, Jasmina Blažić
and others) and theoreticians, most famous
being Darko Suvin. Although small-press
and state-sponsored, UBIQ already caused
quite a commotion on the Croatian literary
scene, getting very favorable reviews and,
apparently, finally drawing the attention of
the so-called main-
stream and academic
circles to the science
fiction. While the future
of UBIQ, within non-
paying
small-press
limits,
now
seems
assured, only time will
tell what its ultimate
reach will be. UBIQ
cannot alleviate the lack
of a regular monthly
magazine,
which
currently seems to be
commercially
compl-
etely unfeasible. What
UBIQ can do is provide
space for contemporary
Croatian SF prose and
theory. There are ambitions for the
expansion of this project, but they will
ultimately depend on available funds, and a
step-by-step approach is the only one
futures of the Science Fiction in Croatia.
possible at this moment.
In the meantime, we hope this text, with all
its shortcomings, will provide the basic
insight into the past, present and possible
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43
THEY SAID ON CROATIA…
Lois McMaster Bujold, USA
2002 SFeraKon GoH
“(…) In Croatia, I seemed to actually
be taken perfectly seriously as a writer. This
seems to be something of a national habit –
I saw more statues put up to writers than to
generals in my ambles around the city. I can
only approve.
(…) Usually, a visiting writer is
insulated from knocks and jars by their
anxious hosts, but it was pretty clear to me
that Americans are actually welcome in
Croatia. For anyone who’s considering a
Mediterranean
vacation,
I
would
recommend they take a look at the Istrian
and Dalmatian coast; the water is clear, the
seafood is splendid, and an astounding
number of people speak at least some
English. With some good will and an
English-Croatian dictionary, I suspect one
could get along rather well. And for history
buffs, well, there’s a feast of Greek, Roman,
medieval, and other sites to see.
(…) I was continually impressed by
my Croatian hosts’ command of English. In
part this comes from their interest in SF, as
only a fraction of the available work gets
translated into Croatian. Croatian SF readers
are just as avid as all others I’ve met, and
would soon run out of books to read if they
didn’t sharpen their foreign language skills.
In turn, the exercise improves their English,
to my benefit; I felt I was able to carry on
high-level and complex conversations about
Sfnal and literary topics with little constraint
practically throughout my stay.
(…) To my surprise, we didn’t bother
with translation; all the attendees were
expected to follow along in English, which,
judging by the questions in the Q&A part,
they were well able to do. I’m still deeply
impressed that we could fill the room, a
hundred to a hundred and fifty people,
random fans, all speaking a second language
well enough to carry on these complex
conversations. Anyway, the interview
seemed to go well…”
http://www.dendarii.com/croatia02.html
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44
Ken MacLeod, Scotland
2005 SFeraKon GoH
“(…) The centre of Zagreb looks very
West
European:
Austro
Hungarian
buildings, red tiled roofs on the houses, and
the odd sixties or seventies office block. A
few hundred metres in any direction from
the centre and it starts to look more like your
typical commie downtown, except with
brighter neon and better stocked shops.
Many of the shops are Western chains,
others date back to the Kingdom or the
Empire, and some are survivors from the
socialist era. (…) South of the river is Novi
Zagreb, all post WW2 and mostly huge -
and not at all identical – apartment blocks
many of which seem to have a ground floor
of small shops and cafes.
The general feel of the place is pretty
laid back. People dress smartly and behave
politely and are friendly. You couldn’t ask
for nicer. Croatia is both Catholic and
nationalist, but relaxed about it, in the style
of the Irish Republic today rather than in the
thirties, or even modern Poland. (…)”
(…) We left with a very warm
appreciation of Croatia, and of its fandom.
Croatia used to be a popular holiday
destination, and is becoming so again. We
certainly intend to come back.”
http://kenmacleod.blogspot.com
Michael Swanwick, USA
2006 SFeraKon GoH
“Croatia
is
beautiful,
small,
egalitarian, a great place for sidewalk cafes
and wandering about in Roman ruins and
still-functioning Venetian
cities, but
possessed of a complex and terrible history.
And the food is terrific. Marianne and I
stayed for several days in an small
apartment just within the Silver Gate of
Diocletian’s palace in Split and while there I
imagined my favorite characters, Darger and
Surplus, arriving on a packet boat hauled
into the harbor by plesiosaurs. We’ll see if I
ever get around to writing that one. I’d be
tempted to set something in the Plitvice
Lakes, a long and magical valley containing
literally hundreds of waterfalls, but
Marianne is convinced that Terry Pratchett
beat me to it with “Thud”.
No toasts, but we did discover that
Croatian men like to sing a capella in the
bars – exquisitely melancholy old songs in
multi-part harmony. If angels went
slumming, this is what they’d sound like.
Mostly, though, I liked the people.
Good folks, fun to hang out with, and some
of them are great storytellers.”
http://scififantasyfiction.suite101.com:80/arti
cle.cfm/call_me_prolific
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45
Richard K. Morgan, England
2008 SFeraKon GoH
“(…) Zagreb in fact turns out to be this
small, mostly sunny and incredibly beautiful
little city on the slopes of green hills, littered
with gorgeous Austro-Hungarian Empire
architecture, thronging with cheery blue,
clanging trams and full of laid-back, friendly
people. (…)
Culturally, Croatia was for me (and
even more intensely for my wife Virginia,
who is Spanish) a weird combination of very
familiar and very alien. There is an attitude
here to family and to food which is pure
Mediterranean. Kids are the centre of
attention everywhere, eating is an important
aspect of life (rather than just the fuelling up
it tends to be in the UK) with thriving open
markets for fruit and veg, broad arrays of
(genuinely – check out the eyes) fresh fish
and seafood, and everywhere buyers and
sellers who want (and have the time) to talk
about the produce as if it actually mattered
what you put in your stomach. To this
extent, it all felt very much like being back
in Spain. But at the same time there’s a dash
of something far more north European in the
slightly sober-looking coffee houses, the
well behaved traffic, the more sedate,
quieter pace of things when compared to the
frenetic speed and volume that Spain likes to
operate at. And of course there’s the
language – Croatian, helpfully lettered in
Roman rather than Cyrillic characters, but
still a million miles from a Romance tongue,
full of harsh slavic sounds and peppered
with a selection of loan words that I
sometimes recognised from my very rusty
Turkish. It’s fascinating to read (well, look
at) and listen to, but it’s not a tongue I had
any confidence about getting easily to grips
with. My publisher concurs – it is,
apparently,
incredibly
grammatically
complicated (as it seems are most slavic
languages), with endings for everything, and
the antique declensional complexity of
Greek or Latin. We spent the whole six days
we were there eternally grateful for the high
levels of English speaking competence
among the Croatians we met.”
http://www.richardkmorgan.com/news.htm
Walter Jon Williams, USA
2001 SFeraKon GoH
“(…) I was guest of honor at the
Croatian national convention, held in
Zagreb, and the object of an enormous
amount of warmth and hospitality, for which
I remain grateful.”
http://walterjonwilliams.blogspot.com
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Dalibor Perković and Boris Švel
CROATIAN SF CONVENTIONS
SFERAKON
Where: Zagreb
When: last full weekend in April
Organised by: SFera
Typical attendance: 800+
http://www.sfera.hr
http://www.sferakon.hr
The oldest and biggest Croatian SF
convention. The first convention called
“SFeraKon” was held in 1983, but SFera
had been organizing similar events -
officially and unofficially – since it was
formed in 1976. In 1986, SFera hosted
Eurocon with Sam Lundwall as a Guest of
Honour.
Today,
SFeraKon
hosts
distinguished foreign GoHs and is more
inclined towards the “serious” type of
programme: lectures, panels, presentations
and a yearly SFERA Award ceremony for
best Croatian SF. In addition, during the last
fourteen years SFeraKon visitors who attend
full three days also get annual collection of
Croatian SF stories included in their
membership fee. However, there are also
quizzes and games for those with a more
relaxed approach to SF. SFeraKon is also
renowned for its film programme, where
people can see up to 20 films ranging from
obscure and bizarre to the non-commercial
works of art, usually hard to reach.
ISTRAKON
Where: Pazin, Istria
When: mid-March
Organised by: Albus
Typical attendance: 400+
http://www.istrakon.hr
If Zagreb has the strongest
convention, Istrian is the most beloved one.
The first Istrakon was held in 2000 as a part
of “Jules Verne days”. Today it is an self-
standing convention whose popularity
among the Croatian fans is immense.
Istrakon has strong Istrian flavour, but also
started hosting foreign GoHs. Although
there are many lectures and panels about SF
and F, Istrakon’s young team of organizers
also likes to keep their guests entertained by
an abundance of games, shows and quizzes.
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RIKON
Where: Rijeka
When: early October
Organised by: 3. Zmaj
Typical attendance: 150+
http://www.3zmaj.hr
The
most
important
autumn
destination for Croatian fans. In the last
couple of years, RiKon firmly established
itself as the third most important convention
in Croatia. Convention has a diverse
programme with a bit of everything.