No. 112 EUROCON 2010 2 EDITORIAL Dear reader, "Parsek" is the oldest Croatian fanzine, first published in 1977 and still running. It is also the bulletin of Science Table of content: Fiction Club SFera from Zagreb. Today, Aleksandar Žiljak SFera consists of some two hundred Sex and Deep-Sea Anglerfish 3 members and is a literary society, as well as Milena Benini a fan club. The annual SFeraKon A Child is Born 9 convention, organized by SFera, attracts Zoran Vlahović nearly a thousand fans each year, and the Tax Case 14 SFERA Award (I know, the spelling bothers Ivana Delač Horvatinčić me, too) is awarded in several categories. Post Mortem 23 Now, let me introduce you to the Croatian Irena Rašeta SF, with the little help of SFera's cute (oh, Let It Be Green 25 well) official mascot, Bemmet. SFeraKon GoHs They Said on Croatia 29 Enjoy! Aleksandar Žiljak UBIQ - The New Croatian Boris Švel Science Fiction Magazine 32 Dalibor Perković and Boris Švel In Zagreb, 10th August 2010 SF Conventions in Croatia 38 "Parsek" on net: NOTE: all materials are translated by the authors http://parsek.sfera.hr/ themselves, unless stated otherwise. 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. Proof-reader: Aleksandar Žiljak. Cover: SFERA award (“The Ashtray”) on its pedestal. All rights reserved. 3 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 SEX AND DEEP-SEA ANGLERFISH "What was I thinking, marrying a tense anticipation, stopping dead in the dark biomecha designer?" surrounding them. "And what was I thinking, marrying "You feel it?", Peter asks in low an ichthyologist?" voice. "May I remind you", Yagoda replies "Shut up!", Yagoda snaps at him. in her sweetest voice, "that without this Unnecessarily: no-one can hear them, all ichthyologist here, you would be dead now." their arguments and discussions and quarrels "And may I remind you, my dear", are strictly between them, thought but never Peter answers, irritated, "that without this voiced. And then, the pressure of the water biomecha designer here, you would be dead, hits them, sending unmistakable stream of too." alarms tuning all Yagoda’s nerves to the Arguments exhausted, Yagoda and maximum, ready for that one critical fin Peter sink back into silence. Recently, this is stroke that means difference between life becoming a frequent end of their quarrels: a and death. stalemate with both of them being right. Is Something big passes them. Close, there some hidden message here, Yagoda too close for comfort. Huge: five, maybe six wonders as she works her tail fin vigorously, meters long. Probably a local equivalent of pushing them through the completely black some deep-sea shark, Yagoda decides, water. Time to look for some chow, she although she cannot see it. Swift, deliberate, decides after ten minutes of stubborn searching, ready to pounce, ready to snap its silence, it’s been two days since she last ate. jaws at the slightest hint of something They’ll both be in a better mood with her edible. But, this time something big swims stomach full ... Suddenly, Yagoda freezes in away into the darkness, missing them. 4 "Maybe we’re too small", Peter blood, in an ambulance wailing all the way whispers as if anybody can hear him. to hospital. "Just you hope", Yagoda knows Peter was a biomechanoid designer. better. No meal is too small this deep. They And a biomecha designer can either work in were lucky, that’s all, the only explanation. industry, or set off on his own, freelancing "What was that, anyway?", Peter across the Galaxy, from job to job, fulfilling whispers. commissions and designing biomechanoids "I don’t want to know." to suit whatever task somebody requires on some distant planet. Usually small series, * * * but there’s an occasional major job, quantities running into thousands or tens of People say the seventh year is the thousands. It pays well if you’re good and if most critical one. Their marriage was falling you’re lucky. Peter was somewhere in the apart at the tender age of three. middle: not good enough to be on top, not Why? Even now, when it became having luck that bad to go bankrupt. completely pointless, Yagoda still tries to Yagoda was an ichthyologist, fresh find an answer. If Yagoda didn’t get after graduation and apprenticeship. The pregnant, would Peter really marry her? On best she could hope for was to land a routine recollection, their relationship didn’t look job at some mariculture station or like something permanent. A good-time oceanographic institute. There were offers, summer, hot bodies in hot sheets in steamy some quite good. But, after the loss of their nights. But then September came and child, Peter didn’t want to stay in one place. September menstruation didn’t. When she And he didn’t really care if Yagoda would confronted him with a positive test, Peter come with him or not. He never said that, felt obliged. Some old chivalrous impulse, never blamed her or anything, but a woman quite rare today, that surprised even Yagoda. can feel it and Yagoda felt it. At that time, Now, surrounded by darkness, she thinks Yagoda cared if Peter didn’t. So she came she finally understands. Peter is quite older along. than she is: perhaps a child was a reason for And while Hans Rudi was not a small him to settle down at last, one final and crowded ship, you cannot exactly slam opportunity to start a family. And as her the doors behind you and vent your pregnancy went on, he really begun looking frustrations in a pub across the street. So, the forward to that boy. frustrations piled one atop another. Words, And then Yagoda miscarriaged, spoken and otherwise. Fights. About small spontaneously. Their joy was flowing out in things, discarded socks or empty sweetener 5 container or toothpaste left opened. And They jumped out into normal space, bigger things. Costs of running the ship. Hans Rudi spinning wildly, totally out of Bills for purchasing DNAs. A cancelled job control. Without force compensators to that almost ruined them. Frustrations maintain the internal up and down, Yagoda growing into resentment, resentment and Peter would have been turned into growing into anger, anger into hatred. bloody blotches long before reaching the And then, in the course of one of their cockpit and strapping themselves into seats. shouting matches in the ship’s kitchenette, The ship slowed down to subrelativistics, when Yagoda found herself holding a frying still spinning, speeding towards a star pan to throw it at Peter, she realized it was system. Typically, Peter wanted to find out time to sit down and talk. Peter agreed, where the hell they were. Also typically, finding himself holding a plate to throw it at Yagoda was more concerned about the Yagoda. So they sat down and talked. And fusion reactor cooling system being way talked. And talked some more, saying things verloaded. neither really wanted to say. They were deep That would have turned into another in the Mlokosziewicz space, running along shouting match, but the quarrel was made one of the probability trajectories to academic by the main power section being Wistary, when they decided divorce was the automatically jettisoned, only to vanish in best way out of the mess they were in. the blaze of thermonuclear explosion several Exactly three minutes and thirty-six second later. What remained of Hans Rudi seconds later, for reasons unknown, their was switching to auxiliary power, speeding, Mlokosziewicz drive croaked. still hopelessly out of control, past the outer planets and towards a tiny blue dot. * * * Tiny blue dot turned out to be a planet, eighty percent of its surface covered Was there some hidden message by ocean. Truth is, Yagoda and Peter had there, too, Yagoda asks herself as she eighty percent probability of hitting the dangles her luminescent lure above her wide water. But, there was still that twenty agape mouth, filled with needle-like teeth, percent probability of hitting the hard rock. ready to snatch anything foolish enough to That was the first time their luck held. come close to investigate the attractive The splash was big. The hull got breached glow. on several places, water rushing in. They started to sink, fast and deep. Yagoda and * * * Peter barely reached the design lab and sealed its doors behind them. Scratch that 6 one about luck: they were imprisoned in the Black outside meant only one thing: they lab, in the sinking ship, with lights showing were too deep for sunlight to reach them. intent to go out at the slightest provocation, "We’re not going to make it, you and computer screens alternating between know", Peter said resignedly. "It’ll take snow and unreadable streams of data, none them at least a week to figure we missed our of them good news. ETA. Even then, where can they start The ship shuddered as it hit the looking? And everything is screwed up, we bottom, the already overstrained structure cannot ..." screeching and moaning like a banshee, the "Shut up!" Lately, Peter was prone to hull settling down with a loud thump. resignation, and that usually infuriated Yagoda and Peter knew options were very Yagoda. "I’m thinking!" few.