Ondřej Neff

Ondřej Neff (born June 26, 1945, Prague) is a Czech science fiction writer and journalist. He is the founder o
''Neviditelný pes''
(''The Invisible Dog''), one of the earliest and most popular Czech daily news/comments websites, an
''Digineff''
a website about digital photography for amateurs.

His father Vladimír Neff was a popular writer, author of many historical novels.

Neff had two children with his first wife: a son, David, born in 1970, who works as a photographer for Mladá fronta DNES and a singer; and a daughter named Irena, born in 1979, murdered by her husband on 23 February 2008.

Ondřej Neff has supported Czech President Václav Klaus in his fight against environmentalism. He described his opinions, for example, in the article Klaus versus the Warming Ideology .

Works

* 1978 ''Holky se perou jinak'' (with Vladimír Kovářík ml.)
* 1980 ''Klukoviny a tátoviny''
* 1981 ''Tajná kniha o fotografii''
* 1983 ''A včely se vyrojily'' (humorous novel)
* 1987 ''Večery u krbu'' (remembrances of his father)
* 1991 ''Černobílé hodinky''
* 1997 – 1999 ''Neviditelný pes'' (books)

Non-fiction

* 1978 ''Podivuhodný svět Julese Vernea'' (Monography about Jules Verne and his work)
* 1981 ''Něco je jinak'' (history of Czech SF)
* 1985 ''Tři eseje o české sci-fi''
* 1987 ''Všechno je jinak'' (history of world sci-fi – with Alexandr Kramer, unacknowledged due to censorship)
* 1999 ''Jak blufovat o sci-fi''
* 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999 ''Klon'' (essay collections)

Own sci-fi writings

(Only four short stories were translated to English, collected later on as "Fourth Day to Eternity and Other Stories" (Manila: Anvil 2015); names in parentheses are just approximate translations of the titles.)

* 1984 ''Jádro pudla'' (juvenile novel)
* 1985 ''Vejce naruby'' (''An Egg Inside Out''), a collection of short stories, including:
** ''Bílá hůl ráže 7,62'' (''White Cane 7.62'') – a horror story describes an alien invasion through hijacking a visual signal coming from an interstellar probe captured by the aliens. The modified signal triggers a process similar to a buffer overflow in a human brain, rewriting the victim's DNA and turning it into a copy of the alien attacker. A very similar theme was used independently by David Langford in the short story "BLIT". The invasion is thwarted with the help of a blind stunt driver trained to shoot on sound, who, to add to the conflict, happens to be a pacifist.
** ''Zelená je barva naděje'' (''Green is the Colour of Hope'') – describes an invention of an apparatus used for reading animal's minds and presenting them to humans in image form. The inventor tests the device on his friends' aquarium, causing much distress and anger because the apparatus shows the aquarium fish dreaming about killing and eating the humans, and dominating the world; as a consequence, all humans who saw the experiment feel they will never be able to trust any pet animal again.
** ''Strom'' (''The Tree'') – a vision of a society after a near-miss ecological catastrophe, which was avoided only thanks to draconian laws of environment protection that put the nature and its preservation well above human life. The characters, last dwellers of a small village, are fighting a losing battle for their homes against a growing forest, as the laws prevent them from harming any tree.
* 1987 ''Čtvrtý den až navěky'' (''The Fourth Day Forever'', coll)
* 1988 ''Měsíc mého života'' (''The Moon of My Life'', novel)
* 1989 ''Pole šťastných náhod'' (''The Field of Good Chances'', marginally fantastic novel)
* 1989 ''Čarodějův učeň'' (''The Wizard's Apprentice'', sequel to ''Jádro pudla'')
* 1990 ''Zepelín na Měsíci'' (''A Zeppelin on the Moon'', coll)
* 1991 ''Vesmír je dost nekonečný'' (''The Universe is Infinite Enough'', coll)
* 1991 ''Šídlo v pytli'' (sequel to ''Jádro pudla'')
* 1992 – 1995 ''Milénium'' (''The Millennium'') – three parts: ''Země ohrožená'' (''Earth Endangered''), ''Země bojující'' (''Earth Fighting''), ''Země vítězná'' (''Earth Victorious'')
* 1997 ''Reparátor'' (''The Reparator'', novel)
* 1997 ''Bůh s. r. o.'' (''God, Ltd.'', coll)
* 1998 ''Tma'' (''The Darkness'', award for best Czech SF; revised version ''Tma 2.0'' in 2003)
* 2003 ''Pravda o pekle'' (''The Truth about Hell'', coll)
* 2003 ''Tma 2.0'' (''The Darkness, 2.0'', a revised version of ''Tma'')
* 2004 ''Dvorana zvrhlosti'' (''The Hall of Aberrations'', coll, )
* 2006 ''Rock mého života'' (''The Rock of My Life'')
* 2007 ''Tušení podrazu'' (''A Glimpse of a Dirty Trick'', )

Scenarios for comics of

Kája Saudek

* 1988 ''Arnal a dva dračí zuby'' (ČSS)
* 1990 ''Štěstí'', ''Slavkovská romance'', ''Příhoda na mostě'' (ČSS)
* 1992 ''Silvestrovský speciál'' (Nei report)
* 1993 ''Noc upírů'' (Nei report)
* from 1996 comic strip ''Bart sám doma''

Works for radio

* 1984 ''Portonský dryák''
* 1985 ''Počkej, Hektore''
* 1987 ''Velká solární''
* 1988 ''Ano, jsem robot'' (prix Bohemia 1989)
* 1991 ''Havárie Drakkaru''

Dramatization

* 1990 ''Zvíře z hvězd'' ('' The Star Beast'' by Robert A. Heinlein)
* 1996 ''Válka světů'' ('' The War of the Worlds'' by H. G. Wells)

Verne's books

* 1988 ''Michal Strogov aneb Carův kurýr'' (''Michael Strogoff, the Courier of the Czar'')
* 1991 ''Honba za meteorem'' (''The Chase of the Golden Meteor'')
* 1986 ''Cesta kolem světa za 80 dní'' (''Around the World in Eighty Days'')
* 1995 ''20 000 mil pod mořem'' ('' Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea'', 5 parts)
* 1996 ''Vynález zkázy'' ('' Facing the Flag'', 2 parts)

Other

* Comics ''Pérák'' (own scenario and drawings).
* Many fan convention talks, in the 1980s especially about English-language SF
* Translation of William Gibson's '' Neuromancer''
* SF stories in anthologies: ''Lidé ze souhvězdí Lva'', ''Železo přichází z hvězd'', ''Lety zakázanou rychlostí'', ''Let na Měsíc'' etc.

External links

Overview of his 1990s work
in a USENET post about Czech SF

{{DEFAULTSORT:Neff, Ondrej
1945 births
Living people
Writers from Prague
Czech male writers
Czech journalists
Czech science fiction writers