Dancing on the volcano

Modifying a biological product in a sci-fi novel

It's simple. An artificial human egg and artificial sperm can only create an artificial human. But is it still human? Or what is it, exactly? An android? A mutant? An animal? Artificial intelligence on a biological basis? Professor Panarski, who brought this to life in his laboratory, was not only a top geneticist, biochemist, and molecular physicist, but also an esotericist, and something of a shaman and wizard.

Petr Heteša

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 at his own company, R2 COMP, which focuses on architectural projects and advertising design. Until 1989, he collaborated with Karel VEVERKA (q.v.) on short stories and novellas that achieved high rankings in the Karel Čapek Award competition. In 1987, this included the short story about a simulated computer game, *Nečistá hra* (Foul Play), in 1988 the extensive short story on a similar theme, *Těšíme se na vás* (We Look Forward to Seeing You) (published by I. Železný in 1991), which describes a brutal computer game whose hero manages to escape from the simulated world into our reality, and in 1989, with the help of the SF club Winston, they self-published the short novel *Sítě, kanály a stoky* (Nets, Canals, and Sewers). Petr Heteša had two of his own short stories published in magazines: *Přírodní krásy Tarcusu* (The Natural Beauties of Tarcus) (*Věda a život*, 1988, no. 2) and *Mončičák a Čičmunda* (Monchhichi and Chichmunda) (*ABC*, 1990, no. 22), which differ significantly from the stories written jointly with K. Veverka. His best short story, *Quag*, was published in the Kočas anthology in 1990.