{"id":9493,"date":"2020-11-08T22:45:59","date_gmt":"2020-11-08T22:45:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sfintranslation.com\/?p=9493"},"modified":"2025-11-24T17:05:27","modified_gmt":"2025-11-24T17:05:27","slug":"review-as-the-distant-bells-toll-by-aleksandar-ziljak","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sfintranslation.com\/?p=9493","title":{"rendered":"Review: As the Distant Bells Toll by Aleksandar \u017diljak"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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translated from the Croatian by the author<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wizard’s Tower Press<\/span><\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

October 5, 2020<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

272 pages<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

grab a copy here<\/span><\/a> or through your local independent bookstore<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Contents:<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

“A Unicorn and a Warrior Girl”<\/span>
“The Divine She-Wolf”<\/span>
“The Nekomata”<\/span>
“Elsbet and The Book of Dragons”<\/span>
“The Law of the Sea”<\/span>
“The Aeolomancer”<\/span>
“Rumiko”<\/span>
“As the Distant Bells Toll”<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I first read Aleksandar \u017diljak’s work in Kontakt: An Anthology of Croatian SF<\/em><\/span><\/a> (2014), also published by Wizard’s Tower Press. His story, “The Dead,” about zombie enslavement that channels first-hand accounts of concentration camps, stood out and left me wanting to read more of his work. So when Cheryl Morgan reached out to me with a review copy of \u017diljak’s collection in English, As the Distant Bells Toll<\/em>, I jumped at the opportunity.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

There’s something about \u017diljak’s style that is relentlessly endearing, engrossing, real<\/em>. I know I’m not being very analytical here, but it’s the kind of feeling I get when I read stories by writers who seem care about their characters’ fate and want things to work out well for them, even if things  don’t.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’m writing about characters here like they’re real people because that’s how \u017diljak writes–even when his protagonists are automatons, shapeshifting wolves, wandering angels, and ancient Chinese warrior women who befriend unicorns. No matter how far back in history \u017diljak takes us, or where on the planet, we instantly know the kind of world we’ve entered with each story. The blossoming friendship between a young girl in ancient China and the unicorn that she’s being used as bait to catch is described with an elegance and compassion that immediately endeared me to the story. Similarly, the love between the shapeshifting she-wolf Jana and her human husband rings true, especially when he finds himself caught between wanting to protect his wife and letting her go out into the woods to rescue their kidnapped son.
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Some of these stories end in a mix of triumph and tragedy: a vampire spirit kills several female ninjas but is finally driven out of their midst (“The Nekomata”); an illustrator is saved from death by the wizard with whom she falls in love (and for whom she sketches real-life dragons) (“Elsbet and The Book of Dragons”); a girl who was mistakenly sent to Heaven instead of Hell is sent back to Earth to prove by one act that she deserves to return to the former (“As the Distant Bells Toll”).<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Each story is accompanied by intricate, beautiful illustrations by the author himself, which add an extra dimension to the tales of love, betrayal, transformation, and heroism.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let’s hope we get more \u017diljak in English soon. I’m looking at you, Wizard’s Tower!<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

translated from the Croatian by the author Wizard’s Tower Press October 5, 2020 272 pages grab a copy here or through your local independent bookstore Contents: “A Unicorn and a Warrior Girl”“The Divine She-Wolf”“The Nekomata”“Elsbet and The Book of Dragons”“The Law of the Sea”“The Aeolomancer”“Rumiko”“As the Distant Bells Toll” I first read Aleksandar \u017diljak’s work<\/p>\n

Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8995,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[1137,519,520,694,521],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sfintranslation.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9493"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sfintranslation.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sfintranslation.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sfintranslation.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sfintranslation.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9493"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.sfintranslation.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9493\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15807,"href":"https:\/\/www.sfintranslation.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9493\/revisions\/15807"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sfintranslation.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8995"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sfintranslation.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9493"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sfintranslation.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9493"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sfintranslation.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9493"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}