Zajdel's novels created the core of Polish social fiction and dystopian fiction. In his works, he envisions totalitarian states and collapsed societies. His heroes are desperately trying to find sense in world around them, sometimes, as in Cylinder van Troffa, they are outsiders from a different time or place, trying to adapt to a new environment. The main recurring theme in his works is a comparison of the readers' gloomy, hopeless situations to what may happen in a space environment if we carry totalitarian ideas and habits into space worlds: Red Space Republics or Space Labour Camps, or both.
The Janusz A. Zajdel Award of Polish fandom is named after him.
He died from cancer.
Frederik Pohl dedicated one of his books to Zajdel and A. Bertram Chandler[2]. This book also contains one of Zajdel's short stories translated into English (Particularly Difficult Territory).