Future With Futura

The untimely death of Sirius in December 1989 is still mourned by many. Although there were rumours 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.

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.

New Vibrations

In spring of that year, a new and important project in the Croatian SF was started. The Science Fiction Society 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 annual 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-Coloured 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 Thirteenth Circle of Abyss), Zmajev zlatni svitak (The Dragon’s Golden Scroll – a collection of fantasy stories) and, finally, in 2009, Strune nemira (The Strings of Restlessness). 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 and Irena Rašeta on The Strings of Restlessness.

Because of the careful selection and editing, these collections 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 just 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 experiments. Finally, the 1990s authors freely introduced Croatian themes, characters and settings into their stories. Why was the majority (not all and not always, but majority nevertheless) 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 leap, implying a further maturing of the Croatian SF that took place in the 1990s.

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