A lot of cour age was needed to un der take, within an extremely tight time table, the “impossible mis -
sion” of cop ing with such a compre hen sive task as dis played in this book, which cov ers practically all
aspects of chess composition.
Be hind this there stood a special sit u a tion, where the gen eral man ager of “Chess In for mant” has
found it in his interest to in vest in such a pro ject, provided that the chief ed i tor is GM Mi lan
Velimirovik. And in deed, one could not ask for a better qualified man for the job. In a lucky co in ci -
dence, Kari Valtonen who happened to gather a lot of ma te rial suit able for the book joined forces with
Milan and these two with the help of sev eral en thu si as tic friends man aged to present us with this
mammoth enterprise – the encyclopedia before you.
Every fan of chess compo si tion can find in this book some thing of interest. The un der signed finds ap -
peal in most aspects of the book, but being biased by his per sonal compos ing activ ity, par tic ularly so
in the core parts re fer ring to themes and terms. For the un der signed, brows ing through these ex ten -
sive parts has been a fas ci nat ing “journey among the stars”.
Nowa days it seems that the time of ba sic themes is over. The time of the more com plex themes has
come, but these must pre serve a num ber of ba sic char ac ter is tics: in ter nal co her ence and logic, a high
prospective for in spiring compos ing and a strong sur vival capability which can only be verified over
time.
The themes should ex pose the po ten tials hid den in the con tin gent rules of chess – their power to cre -
ate things of beauty, which in the case of chess compo si tions are de pend ent entities, as they are
man-made. Beauty in chess compo si tion is not constant but a dynamic con cept. Taste will change
over time, and like the stars in the skies, themes have their peri ods of flourish ing and decline, de pend -
ing on the amount of life or en ergy they possess, and how long it will take for each to burn its en tire
vi tal ity be fore turning into a white dwarf.
This book seems to have taken these or simi lar criteria into con sid er ation. Hope fully the number of
coun ter-examples is neg ligible and can easily be ad justed in a future edition.
This compre hen sive en cy clo pe dia is special in our field of chess compo si tion and will be en joyed by
chess play ers as well. It is a must in the li brary of all lovers of chess prob lems and studies.