Three days in Krakow (Lem it was), or a post-Krakow reading side quest

Some reflections from a recent three-day trip to Krakow.

More touristy than expected.

Everything ran almost suspiciously smoothly.

But are we turning European city centres into theme parks?

I’m halfway through The Cyberiads now, and it has its ups and downs. The first few stories were genuinely interesting and relevant. The Seven Sallies of Trurl and Klapaucius doesn’t really do it for me.

As usual, I went looking for a book with some connection to the place as my souvenir. I wanted something beyond the tourist books (although I did find one I may read sooner or later: The Krakow Ghetto Pharmacy by Tadeusz Pankiewicz), and preferably something beyond the world-famous Stanislaw Lem. But books by Polish authors were hard to find in English, apart from a small selection of his. So The Cyberiads by Lem it was. In the end, it felt like the perfect choice.

I got the book from Bookland. American Bookstore was another good stop, with a solid selection of sci-fi and fantasy in English. We also stumbled across quite a few cosy book cafes, which was a nice surprise. More generally, scanning the sci-fi and fantasy shelves in Polish gave me a fuzzy feeling. The titles just look more genuine that way.

With the help of ChatGPT, I had also come up with an interesting set of books by Polish authors to look for. Mission failed. But since they all sound quite interesting, the list has now become a post-Krakow reading side quest anyway.

Marek S. Huberath — Nest of Worlds

Huberath is genuinely Kraków-connected: he was born there and is a physicist/professor at Jagiellonian University. The novel is philosophical, metafictional SF: nested realities, bizarre physical laws, people whose names predict their deaths, and the possibility that the characters themselves exist inside books. Think Borges + weird physics + Lem-adjacent metaphysics.

Jacek Dukaj — Ice

If you want something enormous and intellectually strange: an alternate history in which the Tunguska event fundamentally changes physics and freezes history itself; logic, language, politics and reality behave differently.

Michael Kandel, ed. — A Polish Book of Monsters

Five contemporary Polish speculative stories, deliberately showcasing Polish SF/fantasy beyond Lem, with dark tales, monsters and elements of Slavic folklore. It includes a story by Huberath.

I’ve read about a third of it, and this description oversells the weirdness so far. Slight disappointment

Stefan Grabiński — The Dark Domain

Go here for Polish early-20th-century weird fiction rather than SF. Supernatural forces, trains, technology, obsession, demons, sexuality and uncanny reality. He’s often lazily described as the “Polish Poe/Lovecraft,” but his weirdness is quite distinctive. Not specifically Kraków, but very much from the old Galician/Central-European cultural world.

Olga Tokarczuk — Primeval and Other Times

More magical realism / invented folklore than SF. A tiny mythical Polish village guarded by four archangels; history, myth, eccentric villagers, nature and supernatural perspectives all overlap. Tokarczuk partly drew on stories from her grandmother. This feels much more like “Polish mythology leaking into reality” than conventional fantasy.

Unexpectedly, Krakow felt very much like sci-fi and fantasy to me. Lem did most of the sci-fi work; all the dragon references, including the supposed dragon bones, took care of the fantasy. We also had a look inside The Witcher shop and tavern. Until then, I had somehow managed not to read, play or watch The Witcher. But inspiration hit. Less than a week later, we’re already through season 1 of the Netflix series.

and a bit like Beneath the Planet of the Apes

Then there was the Wieliczka Salt Mine just outside Krakow. With its underground cathedral and enormous chandeliers, it felt like stepping into Moria. Very much worth a visit.

And a final shoutout to Andrea and his Tour of Krakow, one of the best walking tours I’ve been on, if not the best.