Jiří Kulhánek

Who is Jiří Kulhánek?

Jiří Kulhánek is a popular Czech science fiction and fantasy writer. He is among the most successful contemporary authors of the genre in the Czech Republic. He tolerates to some extent the unauthorised distribution of his works on the internet.

In 1996 he was awarded the Prize of the Czech Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror for promising new authors.

The heroes of Kulhánek's books possess extraordinary or even supernatural abilities; an often used plot element is that the main protagonist is assaulted at the beginning of the story, then takes refuge from the more numerous, albeit 'normal', enemies. In the end he then faces hidden leaders, even more powerful than the hero himself.

Kulhánek's narrative style is swift with lots of black humour and naturalistic descriptions of violence and is sometimes compared to the style of Quentin Tarantino. The language used in his works is, however, rather simple and the plot sometimes has logical flaws.