Authors
Ondřej NEFF
Writer and publicist Ondřej Neff was born on 26 June, 1945, in Prague, the son of the writer Vladimír Neff (1909 – 1983) and actress Vlastimila Petrovičová (1903 – 1980). After graduating from secondary school, Neff worked for the magazine "The World in Pictures" (Svět v obrazech) from 1962 to 1963 and then studied at the Institute of Education and Journalism (1969). He received a PhDr. degree in 1970 for his thesis Yes and No. The Ideology and Journalism of French Students in Spring, 1968, in which he dealt with the issue of ultra-left terrorism and anarchism. In 1969 he married Michaela Šprachtová (d. 2002). Ondřej Neff has two children and lives in the village of Zvole.
Neff continued his studies from 1970 to 1971 in the Department of Cultural History of the Far East at the Faculty of Arts, Charles University, Prague. Simultaneously, he worked in the Albatros publishing house. From 1974 to 1975, he briefly worked as a PR assistant in Prague's biggest department store, Kotva. Then he worked as a freelance photographer and in 1981, he graduated from the Institute of Photography. As a photographer, he worked at the Czech daily Mladá fronta (from 1979 to 1985). Then he became a professional writer. However, Neff did not stay a freelancer for long. As early as in 1987, he started working at the magazine Stem (Kmen) and from 1990 to 1994 he was the editor-in-chief of the Czech daily Mladá fronta Dnes. In the meantime, he became the editor-in-chief of the Czech sci-fi magazine Ikarie, which he founded even before the fall of communism in 1985. In 1995, using the alias Aston, he became absorbed by the Internet: first, he became an editor of the web magazine AmberZine, then he worked for the internet edition of Software News (Softwarové noviny). On 23 April, 1996, Neff published the first issue of his own internet daily The Invisible Dog (Neviditelný pes), named after his late dog Gordon, which would have been twenty on that day. In 1999, Neff established a side project, Digineff, dedicated to photography, and was among the founding members of the Institute of Digital Photography. He has been a lecturer there ever since. He writes political commentaries for the daily Lidové noviny and the radio station Frekvence 1. Several profiles have been made about Ondřej Neff. He has frequently worked for TV and radio, only rarely with film. He was the moderator of a series of sci-fi films (1984) and of the series The World in 100 + 1 years (1986–1987) for the Czech TV company. He was a script writer for the series The Novaks (1995–1996) and several documentaries: It's Only Dreams (1986), Energy – The Engine of Civilization (1997), Ondřej Neff's Homework (1988) and others. He also wrote a dozen radio plays, a five-episode series, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (1995) and a three-episode series, The Shaded World (1996), both dealing with works by Jules Verne. It was Jules Verne who inspired Neff in his work. Neff loved Verne's books from childhood and in 1979, he published The Wonderful World of Jules Verne (Podivuhodný svět Julesa Verna), which filled a gap in Czech book culture (the first book on Verne, published in 1959 by Jaroslav Maria Janatka, was to a large extent only a plagiarized copy of Allotte de la Fuye's monograph, Jules Verne, Sa Vie, Son Oeuvre). In 2005, Neff published a revised copy of The Wonderful World and added an encyclopedia of all Verne's imaginary inventions and geographical locations. But he was not only interested in Verne: Neff wrote an admiring essay about Ludvík Souček (1927–1978), one of the finest "Czech Vernes". It was this essay that raised the issue of the history of Czech science-fiction stories and novels. Many doubted if there really was anything to write about, but Neff responded with his book Something is Different (Něco je jinak; 1982), which he later added to with Three Essays About Czech Science-Fiction (1986). Neff also dealt with the world history of sci-fi. Together with Alexandr Kramerius, whose name could not be written on the cover so his pen name, Jaroslav Veis, was used instead, Neff co-authored the book Everything is Different (Všechno je jinak; 1987). Apart from sci-fi, Neff was also interested in the life and work of Jack London. However, his book on this was never finished and only parts of it were published as postscripts to several books. Neff wrote a great number of short profiles of other authors for the Czech youth magazine Pionýr (1984–1986). He also published books about two visual artists: Cyril Bouda and Zdeněk Burian. He planned a biographical novel about Burian, but the book was left unfinished. Neff also co-authored three dictionaries and a humorous book, How to Bluff About Sci-Fi (Jak blufovat o sci-fi; 1988). However, since the 1970s he has been attracted to fiction, which is almost a family tradition because of his father's books. His earliest work, written together with Vladimír Kovářík, was lost, and the only book they published together was a "stamp collecting" novel, Girls Fight Differently (Holky se perou jinak; 1978). An autobiographical story, Boy Stuff and Father Stuff (Klukoviny a tátoviny; 1980) is full of optimism and enthusiasm. Neff's first story with sci-fi elements, And the Bees Started Swarming (A včely se vyrojily) saw the light of day in 1983 following his experience working for an insurance company. Since 1982, Neff has been a regular visitor to sci-fi cons, where he was once asked if, given that he was a sci-fi theoretician, he had not by any chance written some stories. This was the final argument for Neff's sci-fi career: Neff co-authored the breakthrough anthologies People from the Stars of Leo (Lidé ze souhvězdí Lva) and Iron Comes from the Stars (Železo přichází z hvězd), both published in 1983. His first collection of short stories, An Inside-Out Egg (Vejce naruby; 1985), was named the sci-fi book of the year and received the Ludvík Prize. Since then, Neff has published six more collections including The Book of Frenesis (Kniha Frenesis), in which action is mixed with philosophical thought. He also published the "Clone" books (1995–1999), containing short stories, essays, lectures and scripts. Neff is the author of dozens of short stories, but also of thirteen novels, among which there is a tetralogy from Mars (1984–1991) and a trilogy entitled Millennium (1991–1995). The third part of the saga from Mars, The Lord of the Blue Sword (Pán modrého meče) has so far been published only in the magazine The Pioneer's Seven (1988, Vols. 26 to 52). Another series of novels and short stories from the Moon of the Future (Měsíc budoucnosti) is destined to be "more than a trilogy"; this series is distinguished with the novels The Month of My Life (Měsíc mého života; 1988, revised 1999) and The Rock of My Life (Ro(c)k mého života; 2006). In the latter book, Neff makes use of a "modern myth" – the myth that Elvis Presley is still alive. The book describes Elvis's death and one of Elvis's concerts and its genre oscillates between a sci-fi story and a detective novel. In 1997, Neff started another series with his novel The Reparator (Reparátor), this time a series about forbidden technologies and jobs of the future (he also published a number of essays about this topic in Ikarie and in the Clones). However, due to its Arcadian habitat, this book can easily be classified as a part of the "moon cycle". From the unfinished novel Necrocrator (Nekrokrator) only a few short stories were published in Clone 97 , but an impressive post- catastrophe dystopian novel, Dark (Tma), whose lapidary title was suggested by Alexandra Berková, a fellow Czech writer, was published twice in quick succession (in 1998 and again in 1999). The topic was reworked by Neff into a new novel Dark 2.0 (Tma 2.0; 2003), with 336 pages the second longest of Neff's novels, right behind The Rock of My Life, with 408 pages. The last novel to date, Anticipation of Light (Tušení světla; 2007) is according to the author a "payment of debt" to his idol Ludvík Souček and tries to rebut some of the wildest myths about Souček (such as his being "the Czech Mengele"). It also offers a "solution" to the mystery of Souček's death and the reportedly stolen manuscript of Anticipation of Light. Ondřej Neff has also translated several books from English and is the author of numerous manuals on photography, for example The Secret Book of Photography (Tajná kniha o fotografii; 1981, revised in 2005). He is featured as a political commentator in eight volumes of selected articles originally published electronically in The Invisible Dog (1997–2002). Since the publication of the essay The World of White Bubbles (Svět bílých bublin), printed in Golden May (Zlatý máj; 1978), Neff has been interested both theoretically and practically in comics. So far, he has published five books of this genre. He loves film, although he rarely watches TV, especially sci-fi films (he is, however, not fond of fantasy). And, just like his father, Neff is in love with the character of James Bond and has used it in one of his novels. The complete bibliography of Ondřej Neff, comprising more than 70 items, can be found at www.nkp.cz.
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This author profile was last updated in 2007
