Dancing on the volcano

Modification of a Biological Product in a Sci-fi Novel

It’s simple. An artificial human egg and an artificial sperm can only create an artificial human. But is it still a human at all? Or what exactly? An android? A mutant? An animal? An artificial intelligence on a biological basis? Professor Panarski, who accomplished this in his laboratory, was not only a top geneticist, biochemist, and molecular physicist, but also an esotericist and a bit of a shaman and a sorcerer.

Heteša Petr

He graduated from the Grammar School in Břeclav and then the Faculty of Architecture at Brno University of Technology (1983). He works as an architect, from 1983–90 at DRUPOS České Budějovice, and since January 1991 in his own company, R2 COMP, which deals with architectural projects and advertising design. Until 1989, he collaborated with Karel VEVERKA (see) on short stories and novellas that achieved good placements in the Karel Čapek Prize competition. In 1987, it was the short story about a simulated computer game Unclean Game, in 1988 the extensive short story on a similar theme We Look Forward to Seeing You (published by I. Železný 1991), describing a tough computer game whose hero manages to escape from the simulated world into our reality, and in 1989 they published the short novel Networks, Canals and Sewers as a samizdat with the help of the Winston SF club. Petr Heteša has had two standalone short stories published in magazines: The Natural Beauties of Tarcus (Věda a Život, 1988, no. 2) and Monchichák and Chichmunda (ABC, 1990, no. 22), which are distinctly different from the stories written with K. Veverka. His best short story, Quag, was published in the anthology Kočas in 1990.