The young Russian SF writer Sergey Lukianenko seems to be one of the most successful men of letters these days in Russia; his popularity has reached its climax, with over 50 books published, the number of copies amounting to 500 thousands every year. It is obvious that fame came to him with the recent screen versions of his mystic bestsellers ‘The Night Watch’ and ‘The Day Watch’. The blockbusters filmed by director Timur Beckmambetov have generated considerable excitement in this country. The ‘Watches’ were extensively boosted up to turn into cult films: glossy faces of the movie characters were everywhere around, one could not just escape them. No matter what contradictory feelings these mystical blockbusters crammed with disguised advertising might evoke the plot developed by the author is captivating and the message of the whole story deserves attention.

The success of ‘The Night Watch’ and ‘The Day Watch’ has brought about screen versions of Lukianenko’s other books: quite recently film director Oleg Kompasov has released the movie ‘Asiris Nuna’ after the book ‘Today, Mother!’, and by 2007 Mikhail Khleborodov is going to film a screen version of ‘The Labyrinth of Reflections’ under the tentative title ‘The Depth’.

Sergey Vasilievich Lukianenko was born on April 11, 1968 in the city of Dzhambul, Kazakhstan republic. In 1992 he graduated from the Alma-Ata State Medical Institute specializing as psychiatrist.

His first books were published at the turn of the 1980-90s. His first works with the tinge of imitating Vladislav Krapivin and Robert Heinlein rather quickly gave place to books showing Lukianenko’s original writing manner. The author became well-known due to his novels ‘The Labyrinth of Reflections’ (it has become a cult book in the Russian Internet), ‘Stars are Cold Toys. A Star Shadow’, ‘The Night Watch’, and ‘False Mirrors’.

His trilogy ‘The Line of Dreams’ – ‘Emperors of Illusions’ – ‘Shadows of Dreams’ stands out being quite a non-traditional opera defined as ‘philosophic and cosmic opera’. Also remarkable are Lukianenko’s trilogy ‘Today, Mother!’ and “Lord from the Planet Earth’. Since 1997 all his more or less notable works has been available in form of books.

SF writer Lukianenko and psychiatrist Lukianenko are keeping in step with each other, sometimes interweaving so much that it is hardly possible to discern, where the tale-teller, and where the psychologist is. This is what adds to a special flavour to Lukianenko’s books.

Almost in every book of his the protagonist is attempting to solve this or that conundrum, and striving for his aim has to struggle not only with the outer enemies, but with the inner ones as well. These are fears, complexes, prejudices, preconceived ideological ideas, etc. To win the outer enemy, the hero has to get an insight into his own soul first. And sometimes to newly perceive the common truths, such as love and friendship, for instance. The author defines his genre as ‘Fiction of tough action’ or the ‘Fiction of the Way’.

The author can boast a number of rewards notable in literary circles. In addition to the numerous literary awards Lukianenko became the youngest laureate of ‘Aelita’, the oldest domestic prize awarded for the general contribution into SF development in 1999, and in 2002 the illustrious Russian writer Boris Strugatsky advised to nominate Lukianenko for the ‘ABS-Award’, which the latter took as well.

Sergey lives in Moscow, he is married and is bringing up a son. The celebrity of Russian SF is fond of pets and cooking, he collects mouse figurines, smokes his favourite pipe and experiences his breath-taking success.

Sources:

    www.lukianenko.ru
    ru.wikipedia.org
    www.zmei.h1.ru
    www.outzone.ru

Vera Ivanova