The anthology “My Friend Caligula” premiered last month. Wanting to explore the content of the book even more thoroughly, we spoke to its author. Read what Jacek Piekara says about creating fantastic worlds and his creative plans for the future!
Aleksandra Woźniak: What is Fantasy? Does it have limits?
Jacek Piekara: I have always understood fantasy very broadly. Starting from Homer with his Iliad and Odyssey, to Bulgakov with the Master and Margarita , or Ibero-American prose or by Murakami and McCarthy. So books that cannot be found in bookstores on the shelf with the word Fantastyka on it.
AW: How do you create worlds? Are there any rules, schematics? If so, should you avoid them? Many of these worlds appear in the book My Friend Caligula .
JP: The book has been divided into sections precisely because there are several described worlds. And I wanted the reader not to experience sudden transitions from world to world. These transitions do exist, of course, but they are hard to avoid when there is no thematic anthology or when the stories are not linked, for example, by a common universe or a common hero.
How do you create worlds? Well, the story is the most important thing, the world itself is just a set. Of course, some stories are better suited for fantasy sets, others for horror, and cyberpunk for others. But it really all comes down to a story about a man. And either this story is engaging and moving or not …
AW: Is the anthology My Friend Caligula good for readers who do not know your works?
JP: The anthologies of short stories are a good choice to get to know the work of an author whose books have not been read so far. In the case of my books, the range of topics covered and styles used is considerable. From the Sarmatian Character , through the fantasy horror Necrosis , the contemporary Alicja , the brutal anti-utopia of the Most Holy Republic, to the flagship Inquisitor Cycle. So I know that new readers get a little confused sometimes and ask, “Where do I start? ”Happens often. Commanding a thematically diverse collection of short stories is always a fairly safe solution.
AW: How are stories selected in terms of compiling them into one anthology? Are you looking for those that will fit together, or on the contrary? Or is it about collecting only the best? Were these four separate sections ( Firestorm , Hell , Heaven , Earth , Alien Worlds, and Love story ) planned from the beginning?
JP: As for the collection My friend Caligula , I simply collected and sorted stories written over the years. Sometimes, however, the creative process is different. For example, the collection of short stories People and Beasts was created as a deliberate concept, which in all texts was to present the confrontation of – let’s call it conventionally – a man with a monster.
AW: Many stories throw the reader into the whirlwind of events. What it comes from? Is it an easy or a difficult start?
JP: As a reader, I like it when the author gradually reveals some secrets of his world to us. It’s like showing us around the house. And we don’t know if, after visiting the pink pony lounge, we won’t find ourselves in a cellar with blood splattered walls in a moment.
AW: My Friend Caligula is a collection of male worlds and male points of view. Will there be a strong protagonist in your work?
JP: I completely disagree with this opinion. I consider these texts to be general humanistic and simply about human beings. In most cases, the gender of the characters is of little importance and one can easily imagine replacing the male characters with the female ones. In some stories, however, the fact of male heroes results from the logic of the text. Soldiers – a WWII hero or a Waffen SS criminal – just have to be men. But the Green Fields of Avalon , for example , a text in which gender is indeed of utmost importance, is a narrative of a woman’s spiritual and physical liberation, written from her point of view.
In general, however, I think it is more convenient to construct a story when, writing in the first person, the author tells about a hero who is of the same sex as himself. With texts with a third person narrator, changing the main character’s gender is a bit easier.
AW: What have you not yet written? How will you surprise us in the near future?
JP: Probably this year a large collection of my socio-political columns will be published, entitled The Eye of the Inquisitor. I am looking forward to this debut in the non-fiction world with great joy. When it comes to fiction, I have long had an idea for a collection of contemporary moral stories (without elements of fantasy) and for a novel that would take place during the Stalinist era in the USSR (also without elements of fantasy). And when it comes to fantasy, I would like to write a collection of horror films located in the world of HP Lovecraft and in a cyberpunk envelope. I will probably never write such a book, but the very thought that I could do it I really like 😉
In fact, this is what awaits me in the near future, above all, the end of the Inquisitor Cycle. The Flame and Cross IV and the Black Death that follows are absolute priorities. And the end of the Gallows trilogy , which many people cannot forgive me when interrupted by a cliffhanger. But I assure you: the third volume crowning this mini-series will surely be published!
AW: Is there any archetype of a hero that we will never meet with you?
JP: Everyone should do what they know. I think I would even have trouble with a lot of heroes whose professions are far from my interests or just my knowledge. To use a specific example: I will not write about the medical adventures of Dr. House, because I have no idea about medicine and I am not particularly tempted to acquire this concept. But if we understand an archetype as a characteristic set of features or behaviors, and not a profession, then I have no objections here. I have written both about good and mean people, about the strong and the weak, about cowards and heroes, and about people who are difficult to unambiguously define ethically. But there are indeed some heroes that I would not like to write about for reasons, let’s call them, of an aesthetic nature …
AW: What do I wish you?
JP: I have always believed that the most important thing for a man is that he and his relatives are healthy. Because when we have physical and mental strength, the rest of things can always be somehow successfully, sooner or later, arranged …