Cook the crayfish

Why this strange name for an anthology of short stories by the youngest and oldest generations of Czech sci-fi authors? The crayfish is a native crustacean that is on the verge of extinction. It is as rare as saffron. It used to be a common inhabitant of Czech streams and ponds; today it is part of our environmental sorrow. You can hardly catch it anywhere, and if you do, you'll be fined at least CZK 1,000. In old Czech cookbooks, this pincer-wielding creature was a perfectly normal food product, much like bourgeois artichokes, snail tails or nightingale tongues. Well, that is the essence of our intention, the name that perhaps rather bizarrely stands as the title of this anthology: Cook a Crayfish! The crayfish, in this sense, is a symbol of something that is almost lost. So, shall we try to cook a crayfish? Let's take it as a great challenge. To resurrect a great power, a great helping of imagination, without which fantasy literature could not exist.