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FOREWORD


DEAR HUNTERS AND HUNTRESSES, DEAR MONSTERS AND BEASTS . . . 

If the preceding words have surprised you, know that I have good reasons for them. The first one is obvious. It is an undeniable fact that a properly chosen addressing is, at least in the case of a foreword, half the battle for the reader’s attention, especially when it is necessary to defend the bare existence of such a text in contrast to the eleven great short stories that are impatiently waiting close behind to captivate the readers.

The second reason is based on the assumption that there are plenty of reasonably intelligent monsters on the other side of the barricade as well, so there’s a definite possibility that at least a few of them might be well-read enough to enjoy this anthology. You know, “When you are throwing books long enough into the Abyss . . . the Abyss begins to read.” It’s admittedly a pretty hypothetical possibility, but why deprive yourself of any minority group of readers in advance? Besides, where is it written that such a monster couldn’t be a real geek? Can you imagine, for example, a monster coming to a book signing to get autographs from its favorite writers? And then capture their hearts in more than just a figurative sense. But that’s a whole different story.

The third reason is quite obvious: if it weren’t for Hunters and monsters, this magical anthology wouldn’t have been created in the first place. So why not thank them?

Now on a more serious note: the purpose of this foreword is to share a bit of the history of our Monster Hunter Fantom project and to reveal a few not entirely uninteresting facts connected with it. To do so, however, I must first go back more than a decade—to a time when publishers were desperately searching for a new “holy grail” that would bring them primarily wealth and secondarily some fleeting but welcomed fame. The big ones longed to discover “the next Dan Brown” or “a new J. K. Rowling,” the smaller sci-fi/fantasy publishers would usually settle for “the new Kulhánek, the great Master of Czech splatterpunk.” And so it happened that one day my friend and the head of the Ostrava publishing house FANTOM Print, Libor Marchlík, came to me and, with a triumphant look on his face, announced that he had discovered “the American Kulhánek,” whose name was Larry Correia.

Having heard various versions of this phrase a few times already, I was quite skeptical, but upon closer inspection, strangely enough, there seemed to be some truth to his claim. Correia’s Monster Hunter series, despite its originality, is in many ways in line with Kulhánek’s books, be it the brutal action, a lot of spilled blood, spent bullet casings, the right amount of hyperbole and black humor, and last but not least some of the catchphrases and pop culture references. To put it simply, this was love at first read, and as the number of books published in the Czech Republic grew and Larry’s world of humans and monsters developed and diversified, as new heroes, ideas and monsters were added, that feeling deepened, at least for me. The visit of Larry Correia and his lovely wife to Prague, where we not only met in person, but also had some spectacular adventures, from a truly epic meat-eating contest at the Ambiente restaurant, Larry’s amazement when our small group of die-hard fans marched in front of him wearing T-shirts that featured a great caricature of him by Dan Černý, to an amazing visit to Army Museum Žižkov on Vítkov, where Correia felt like a fish in water and had an insightful discussion about various weapons.

And here we get to Jakub Mařík, a translator and Monster Hunters fan, who went on this amazing journey with us and enjoyed Correia’s visit at least as much as I did. So, in 2020, not long after the publication of a collection of short stories by American authors called Monster Hunter Files, when I first thought that we could compile a similar anthology here in the Czech Republic, I immediately thought of him. Like any visionary, I needed a faithful sidekick who would do most of the work and let me shine. Jakub was an ideal choice for this project not only because he is the guardian and expert in the world of Monster Hunters, but also because of his enthusiasm and last but not least because of his introverted nature, which limits him quite a bit when speaking in public, but does not limit him in his writing. And time has shown that I chose well.

As soon as I presented my idea to Jakub, he immediately got excited about it, and we could start planning. Which involved some pretty heated discussions, which led to the conclusion that the anthology should be produced under the patronage of Larry Correia (and preferably with a story by him included), each story should be set in the Czech Republic, and it should involve only domestic monsters and beasts. As a bonus, the stories should be more or less connected with the hunting company Fantom based in Ostrava, which Larry Correia incorporated into Monster Hunter Siege after meeting some of the crew of his Czech publisher in person.

The next step was to choose the right authors, and then the real work could begin. While Jakub got the easy part, which meant convincing Larry, I had to deal with the hard part: getting Libor Marchlik excited about our project. Extracting a promise of funding out of a man whose stubbornness Scrooge McDuck would be envious of was an almost superhuman feat. But we did it. And so we could start approaching authors and luring them into our net. Oddly enough, MHF’s idea aroused general interest, enthusiasm, and ultimately approval. I won’t enumerate here all that we had to promise and do—as the Jesuits say, the end justifies the means—but ten local fantasists embarked on the journey that led to this unique anthology.

Jakub and I were available to them practically non-stop, and we also gave them a short summary of the world of Monster Hunter and a description of the lead figures of the Fantom hunting company. (If you notice some similarities between the members of Fantom and the staff of a certain Ostrava publishing house, it is certainly no coincidence.) I’d like to elaborate a bit here, because that quartet of characters will play a sometimes larger and sometimes smaller role in the stories that follow. The most prominent one is, of course, Libor, a handsome scrooge and a business shark who can play it pretty rough. Next is Alexandra, the company’s sales director, an introvert who improves her mood by detonating powerful explosives, usually in the vicinity of magical creatures. Then there’s Martin, the quartermaster and the company’s mad scientist with a weakness for succubus miniatures. And Petra, an archivist and a source of information on monsters and magic, who went from teaching little “monsters” at school to hunting the big ones.

Admittedly, writing stories with this formidable team was pretty easy. Though there were problems there too, especially within the usual suspects, i.e. submission deadlines. And so bargaining happened, more or less realistic reasons for delays were given, but everything was solved in time.

As editors, our main concern was that all the stories might end up similar. We were able to take care of a part of it right at the beginning—make sure the stories wouldn’t be about the same monsters—but then it was up to each author and their imagination. And here, I have to admit, it came out better than I dared hope. Each story is different, and each is differently good. Whether it’s the pieces by “famous” faces like Pavlovský, Kotleta or Sněgoňová, or by still evolving promising talents like Paytok or Hoza. All writers involved in this anthology really overdid themselves. What’s more, it turned out that our monsters can be just as entertaining and dangerous as the American ones.

Long story short, I had a great time preparing Monster Hunter Fantom. And now I hope you’ll enjoy these eleven stories just as much!

Martin Fajkus


P. S.: Jakub Mařík refused to write an afterword, so anyone who feels deprived by this fact should direct their complaints to him.


MARTIN FAJKUS (* 1970)


A fan of fantasy and science-fiction, book lover, literary publicist, both editor and editor-in-chief of the magazine Pevnost, editor of genre collections and a fool dreaming of writing his own novel one day. A native of North Moravia, he discovered fantasy in his teens through medieval chivalric novels and Lord of the Rings. Although he built a solid professional career as a technical expert in the nuclear power plant field, his love of books also led him to the publishing house FANTOM Print, with whom he worked for many years selecting titles and negotiating with authors and illustrators. He started as a literary columnist for the Fantasy Planet website and also contributed to the semi-professional magazine Ramax. Since 2002, he has been the editor of Pevnost magazine, and in 2014 he became its editor-in-chief, which he still is today.

After several attempts to create his own work, he moved to the position of editor. His first work in that capacity is the anthology Legion of the Immortals (Legie nesmrtelných, FANTOM Print, 2006), a collection of fantasy short stories by an original mix of well-known local and international authors, including Steven Erikson and Raymond E. Feist.

A purely domestic anthology Dark Times (Temné časy, FANTOM Print, 2012) is mainly focused on dark fantasy. A few years later, together with Tomáš Němec, he prepared a short story collection of the best of what appeared in Pevnost magazine, called Fellowship of Pevnost (Společenstvo Pevnosti, FANTOM Print, 2014). His latest project is Monster Hunter: Fantom, on which he collaborated editorially with Jakub Mařík. After what he revealed in the foreword of this book, you have to admit that his presence in MHF is essential!



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