Zimne światło gwiazd

World War II is over, but the situation on the front remains unstable. So opens the novel Cold Light of the Stars. The war’s aftermath is not the only point where this world diverges from our own. Classified data from the Nazi space programme has been intercepted by Polish forces. In a postwar Europe bisected by the Iron Curtain, the Socialist Bloc enjoys ample freedom, and the emerging field of space exploration is hardly monopolised by the United States or Soviet Union. The men and women of Poland are at the vanguard of the new Space Age.

Biedrzycki’s highly original alternative history rides the momentum of two current trends: popular culture’s nostalgia for retro fantasy and the 21st century revival of space exploration. Cold Light of the Stars tells the story of Galactic Gloria (the first Polish woman in space), her husband Victor and their close friend Jerzy, who are all embroiled in a complex triangle of fierce attachments. This episodic tale of space conquest brims with dramatic events and stunning reversals. Reminiscent of the Oscar-winning Gravity, the novel reveals that the gravest threats lurking in space are not little green aliens but glitchy technology, human error and the vacuum itself – that place where even the loudest scream falls on deaf ears. Yet the novel’s heroes are not on a doomsday course. On their side is the headstrong socialist spirit, bravura of youth and idealism of the wild frontier.

English-language readers have Andy Weir’s The Martian. Biedrzycki, aided by rich supplemental materials (diagrams, illustrations, apocryphal articles from the described period), spins a similar story that is nonetheless rooted in an alternative reality – one that holds great allure today.