Magdalena Kozak (born 25 June 1971 in Warsaw) is a Polish writer of speculative fiction, as well as a soldier and physician. She is also a career military officer and emergency physician, and served as a parachute-trained paramedic during Polish deployments to Afghanistan in the early 2010s.
She has a strong interest in the military: she is an experienced parachutist and practices shooting (as an instructor and sports shooting judge).[1] She studied medicine.[2]
A military physician specializing in emergency medicine, she served in the 2nd Search and Rescue Group[pl].[3] She participated in Polish missions in Afghanistan (7th and 12th rotations of the Polish Military Contingent in Afghanistan, in 2010 and 2012).[3] During the latter mission, she was wounded.[4] Later she also served in Polish military missions in Iraq[pl] and Iraq[pl].[5]
She is an experienced parachutist, having completed over 300 jumps by 2017.[3] On 29 July 2017, she became the ceremonial godmother of the Gulfstream G550 aircraft “General Kazimierz Pułaski”.[3][7]
Kozak's fiction is frequently noted for combining speculative premises with detailed and technically credible depictions of military life, reflecting her professional experience, it has often been classified as military science fiction.[11]
Her literary debut was the short story Nuda, published in the online magazine Fahrenheit, where she served as an editor from 2005 to 2011. The story, a humorous pastiche of fairy tales about a princess guarded by a dragon, marked the beginning of her engagement with genre fiction.[11] She has since published over two dozen short stories, often in Nowa Fantastyka, Science Fiction, and Esensja[pl].[11]
Her longest and best-known work is the Vesper series, which began in 2006 with Nighter[pl], also her novel debut.[11] The series blends urban fantasy with military science fiction, and follows a young counter-intelligence officer who becomes a vampire.[11] It was followed by Renegat and Nikt, all three nominated for the Janusz A. Zajdel Award (for 2006, 2007, and 2008 respectively).[12] The fourth installment, Młody, was published on 24 May 2017, followed by the fifth, Gracz, on 18 June 2025.[11][13] The first four volumes of the series have been translated into English (published in 2017 and 2018 by New Zealand publisher Cheeky Kea Printworks as, respectively, Nighter, Renegade, Nobody, and Inanite); it is one of the relatively few works of Polish speculative fiction to reach an international readership.[11]
Her novel Fiolet[pl] (2010) is a near-future military SF thriller in which extraterrestrial violet-colored plants capable of releasing hydrogen cyanide begin colonizing Earth. A military unit is tasked with destroying the organisms during orbital descent. While the novel incorporates science fiction elements, critical attention has focused on its realistic and dynamic portrayal of military operations and parachuting.[11]
Łzy diabła[pl] (2015) is a military fantasy set on a desert planet shaped by foreign intervention and internal conflict, drawing clear parallels to Afghanistan. The novel combines elements of planetary romance with a setting influenced by real-world geopolitics, depicting a world affected by exploitation of a valuable narcotic resource.[11]
Among her more overtly fantasy-oriented works, Paskuda & Co. (2012) expands on the humorous tone of her early short fiction, while Minas Warsaw (2020) presents a comedic urban fantasy scenario in which modern Warsaw is overtaken by a powerful wizard who establishes his seat in the Palace of Culture and Science and arrives riding a dragon.[11]
Poland