Sergey Lukyanenko
Sergey Lukyanenko (Russian: Сергей Лукьяненко) (born April 11, 1968) is a science fiction and fantasy author, writing in Russian. He was born in Kazakhstan and educated as a psychiatrist. It is said that he has been heavily influenced by Robert A. Heinlein, Strugatsky brothers, and Vladislav Krapivin in his writings. Sergey Lukyanenko is surprisingly tolerant of fanfiction, going as far as to incorporate some of the better fanfics into canon. He's married and lives in Moscow.
The film Nochnoy dozor (Night Watch), regarded as "the first Russian blockbuster" was based on his series. The film grossed over $16 million in Russia, a box office record at that time. As of 2006, few of his works have been commercially published in English, partially because Western publishers are apprehensive about the state of modern Russian copyright laws. However, that situation may soon change, see external links for details. An English translation by Andrew Bromfield, a founding editor of the Russian literature journal Glas, will be published in the UK in English on 6 July 2006 and in the US (ISBN 1-401-35979-5) on 26 July 2006.
UPDATE The translated English version of the first movie is now (as of 17th Feb 2006) on limited release in the United States, this is released by Fox Searchlight who in 2005 acquired the Russian film adaptation for an American release (Source: [1]), the English translations of the Books are also due for release soon (Source: [2]) also worth noting that Day Watch (Night Watch 2) has already been released in Russia (1 January 2006) as Dnevnoy dozor (Russian for Day Watch) (Source: [3]) and according to Commingsoon.Net will be released by Fox Searchlight this year(2006) (Source: [4]), i realise this isn't a proper update but otherwise there would be too many omissions, perhaps someone can verify the sources and write it up properly.
Acclaim for His Work
- 1993:"Aelita" - "Start Award" for his tale Atomny son (Атомный сон - Nuclear Dream)
- 1995:"Interpresscon" - short form "Interpresscon Award" for his short story Fugu v mundire - Poached fugu
- 1995:"Sibcon" - "Sword of Rumatha" Award for "Knights of forty islands" novel
- 1996:"Interpresscon" - "Interpresscon Award" for "Servant" tale
- 1997:"Stranger" - "Sword of Rumatha" Award for "Imperiors of Illusions" dilogy
- 1998:"SF Forum" - "Sigma-F" Award for "Autumn Visits" novel
- 1998:"Zilantkon" - Award "Big Zilant" for "Labyrinth of Reflections" novel
- 1999:"Aelita" - "Aelita" award for general progress in the Science Fiction genre
- 1999:"Stranger" - "Stranger" award in the nomination "Major form" for "Night Watch" novel
- 1999:"Star Bridge" - "Silver Kladutsey" award in the nomination "Serials and sequels" for "False Mirrors" novel
- 1999:"Star Bridge" - "Silver Kladutsey" award in the nomination "Major form" for "Night Watch" novel
- 2000:"Interpresscon" - "Interpresscon" award in the nomination "Major form" for "False Mirrors" novel
- 2000:Special Award - "Best literature murder of Yury Semetsky" for "Genome" novel
- 2000:"Star Bridge" - "Gold Kladutsey" award in the nomination "Serials and sequels" for "Day Watch" novel
- 2000:Special Award - from the "Kharkov's institute crankes" award for outstanding merits in the Science Fiction
- 2001:"Russcon" - "Gold Russcon" award for "Day Watch" novel
- 2001:"Interpresscon" - "Russian S.F." award for "Seekers of the Sky" dilogy
- 2001:"Lituanikon" - 1st place in the nomination "best novel of foreign author"
- 2001:"Star Bridge" - "Silver Kladutsey" award in the nomination "Serials and sequels" for "Morning Nears" novel
- 2001:"Stranger" - "Stranger" award in the nomination "Minor form" for "Evening conference with Mr Separate Deputy" short story
- 2002:"Ruscon" - "Alisa" award for "Dances in the Snow" novel
- 2002:"Interpresscon" - "Interpresscon" award in the nomination "Minor form" for "From fate" short story
- 2003:"Ruscon" - "Gold russcon" award for "Spectrum" novel
- 2003:"Ruscon" - "Silver russcon" award for "Frontier time" short story
- 2003:"Kiyvcon - "Big Urania" award for "Spectrum" novel
- 2003:"SF Forum" - "Sigma-F" Award for "Spectrum" novel
- 2003:"Interpresscon" - "Bronze snail" award in the nomination "Major form" for "Spectrum" novel
- 2003:"Interpresscon" - "Interpresscon" award in the nomination "Major form" for "Spectrum" novel
- 2003:"EuroCon-2003" - Sergey Lukyanenko admitted as the best Europe author
- 2003:"Star Bridge" - "Gold Kladutsey" award in the nomination "Major form" for "Spectrum" novel
- 2004:"Star Bridge" - "Gold Kladutsey" award in the nomination "Serials and sequels" for "Twilight Watch" novel
- 2005:"Ruscon" - "SF writer of the year"
Bibliography
 Knights of Forty Islands
This harsh tale describes children, moved (more strictly, copied) into an artificial alien-created environment. An expedition, sent by an advanced civilization, examines "psychological charts" of the kids, detected as potential future leaders. The boy Dima, who used to fight in streets, now has to fight in a place where swords are used instead of fists. His new environment consists of forty islands, each connected to three others via high and narrow bridges. There is a castle on each island; and about 18 kids ("knights") live in each one. The islands are distinct: dictatorship or democracy, a brutal rude leader or a quiet one. The population is made up of 70% boys and 30% girls in homogenous or heterogenous national groups, no one older than 18. Everyone wants to return home. All are playing the Game: knights of any island will return home if they conquer all of the islands. Swords are wooden at first, but (unknown to the wielder) a sword turns steel when the owner feels hatred towards an opponent. Although retaining the world of feelings of usual children, these "knights" change: they learn to fight to the death, not to pay much attention to wounds; they cover friends and take revenge for fallen ones. Dima sees his new friends being killed, and he kills, too. He and Inga, a girl he knew before, propose the establishment of a Confederation of islands as the way to stop the Game. But the idea fails to be realized, resulting in many deaths: some knights refuse to join the Confederation, others just want in to seize power for themselves... The way of life at islands proved to be very stable, since Aliens took into account human psychology and sociology. Dimma with friends even were not the first. They discover a hidden room with remains of children, who got on islands during the Second World War and locked themselves in, when their Union collapsed due to betrayal. But our heroes also find in this room old weapons, including dynamite. Now the action rushes... This novel contrasts with the books of Vladislav Krapivin, who emphasises the inherent goodness of children. Lukianenko draws on a harsher city subculture and is closer to Golding's pessimistic outlook in Lord of the Flies, though his skepticism expresses on higher levels of social and inter-cultural interaction, than just descent to savagery. The author's attitude towards the topic is expressed openly: {...} Author believes, that in the childhood, when every court is an island, and every street is a bridge to unbeknown, one day there will remain no place for the Game, in which they kill.
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Trilogy, co-authored with Juliy Burkin.
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A Lord from Planet Earth
Trilogy An action-filled space opera with evolving characters. Each subsequent book involves more ethical problems and philosophy, while at the same time the scale of action steadily increases. This is Lukianenko's only major work that is partially set in the same imaginary universe as the "Road to Wellesberg" series of short stories.
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In the novella "A princess is worth death", we follow Sergey, a young retired sergeant of the Army of the former Soviet Union, who accidentally met and loved a princess. After five years she calls him for help. Sergey agrees at once to join her at another planet, Turr. The book is full of fighting with curious weapons (the most effective are plane swords), and galactic laws. Serge is not a weak character, and he knows the price of life — but not his enemies'... The thread going through this book is what love is worth, and what can't be allowed even for the sake of love.
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With the main Enemy eliminated, why can't Sergey just live with the Princess?
The ancient vanished civilization, the "Seeders" (who seem to have born all known galactic races), left a Temple at each inhabited planet. This Temple is both a keeper of galactic customs, and a beacon for flights in hyperspace -- a selection of four beacons defines a destination in 3D space. The Earth is the only planet without a Temple, and no known combination of beacons leading to it. The people of Turr will not accept a Prince from a non-existent planet; and besides that, the Princess doesn't love Sergey...
The second book is devoted to efforts of Sergey and his friends to find the Earth. It involves well-thought and credible starship battles, etc. Surprisingly, Sergey finds a boy from Earth. This, and some other accidents, convince Sergey's crew that they have an unknown enemy. A sect called "The Descendants of Seeders" also wants to find "the planet which doesn't exist", to explode a quark bomb on it (a terrible weapon, turning a whole planet to atomic dust), thinking that only this will bring the Seeders back and make the universe wonderful. Who will reach the Earth first? It becomes a race for survival.
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The action in the final book approaches the level of total war between two interstellar civilizations with incompatible basic values. Despite this, the book is written in an intrinsically poetic, even metaphoric style. Death can seem beautiful, we see charm in destruction... but what lies beneath all? Aren't pain and fright the real basis of all wars? Aren't all beautiful words justifying wars only the way that we, people, devised to reconcile our consciences with killing?
What is the meaning of life, what is the sense of living? Everybody finds it in his own way, but the large ancient civilization of Fungs found it in beauty. They have a single word for "truth", "beauty", and "faith". They gave up wars long ago. Any fung that killed another died, realizing the unbeauty of his act. But human culture has convinced them that wars could be beautiful and gave them a new meaning of life in being warriors. And, when you take something from the world, you can't not give it something instead...
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A fantasy novel where a modern boy, Danny, comes to a world without sunlight. According to the inhabitants, the sunlight was sold a long time ago to some evil entity. In order to get back home, Danny needs to find some sunlight that could help him open the True Door. All the people are divided into the good Wingers, that live in cities, and the bad Flyings, that live in towers. The Wingers are descendants of the people who sold the sunlight, and the Flyings are a kind of undead who serve a Dark Lord. They are both capable of flying, and continuously fight each other in small local clashes. The plot is a quest, similar to Stephen King's "The Talisman". Danny joins the side of the Wingers, and starts his journey attempting to acquire sunlight, or any other kind of something called "True Light".
Trilogy
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- "Sword of Rumatha" Stranger award.
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Co-authored with Nick Perumov.
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Trilogy
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- "Big Zilant" Zilantcon award.
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- "Silver Kladutsey" Star Bridge award.
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Tetralogy
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- "Stranger" award in the nomination "Major form".
- "Silver Kladutsey" Star Bridge award.
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Co-authored with Vladimir Vasilyev.
- "Gold Kladutsey" Star Bridge award.
- "Gold Ruscon" Ruscon award.
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- "Silver Ruscon" Ruscon award.
- "Gold Kladutsey" Star Bridge award.
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Trilogy
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- "Best literature murder of Uriy Semetskiy" award.
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- "Alisa" Ruscon award.
Duology
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- "Russian S.F." Interpresscon award.
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- "Silver Kladutsey" Star Bridge award.
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- "Gold Ruscon" Ruscon award.
- "Big Urania" Kiyvcon award.
- "Sigma-F" SF Forum award.
- "Bronze snail" Interpresscon award.
- "Gold Kladutsey" Star Bridge award.
Rough Draft
This is a fantasy novel of a "parallel world" genre. The story starts with the hero, Kirril, being "erased" from daily life in present Moscow. Everybody forget him (even his parents and dog), other person lives in his apartment, all IDs and files in all offices disappear. After a while he is phoned and proposed to go in an old water tower — but inside is his future home and working place. There he reveals that he is able to open doors, leading to parallel worlds (only one at first; there are also closed doors, places they would lead to being undetermined). All of worlds have mostly similar environment, but societies and people are different. After a while Kirril contacts people called functionals, due to they gained supernatural abilities making them excellent in some profession. They serve other people, but mostly other functionals. They say Kirril became one of them — a custom officer. He benefits from taxes, paid by people who pass through his custom. Also he holds a superhuman strength and is almost immortal within the range of 10 km from the tower. But this doesn't work beyond. Kirril enjoys new worlds, people and abilities. A Russian politician Dima tells him about the mysterious world number One, no one door leading to it. According to rumours, it's the exact copy of our world, but living 30 years later. Dima proposes Kirril to try opening a door to this world for the benifit of Russia. Then he encounters underground, that is few people who fight against "corporate laws" of functionals, their working for themselves or elites of worlds. In the modern Russia ideas of future revolutions are not just unpopular but laughable, among those who saw last years of communist rule originated from the October Revolution. This is the case for Kirril, but not for a 20-aged girl from underground who he fell in love with. That time he opens the last door, and... gets in Arkan, the world number one. A lovely Moscow, filled with smiling people... there were no Second World War, no horrors of revolution... This world lags for 30 years, and its rulers study mistakes of other worlds in order to avoid them. It's just what Dima proposed to Kirril. Returning to our world, Kirril faces troubles with his girl. Hating system of functionals, she exhibits disobedience to them... And their laws don't forgive this. Kirril is unable to prevent her being murdered by functioner Natalie:
In Kirril's fighting Natalie, his tower became devastated, but his former usual life was restored. Kirril refused to be a functional with all their benefits for the sake of abstract but important for him ideas. The story is not finished yet, its ending we will learn from the second book of future duology. |
Short Story Collections
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Beautiful away (Прекрасное далеко)
- My father is an antibiotic (Мой папа - антибиотик)
- Road to Wellesberg (Дорога на Веллесберг)
- The smell of freedom (Запах свободы)
- Almost spring (Почти весна)
H is for Human (Л - значит люди)
- Servant (Слуга)
- H is for Human (Л - значит люди)
- Visit (Визит)
- Train to the Warm Lands (Поезд в Теплый Край)
- The guide to Away (Проводник Отсюда)
- Master of the roads (Хозяин дорог)
The man that couldn't do very much (Человек, который многого не умел)
- Behind the Forest, where the cowardly enemy lurks (За лесом, где подлый враг...)
- The ability to pull the trigger (Способность спустить курок)
- Violation (Нарушение)
- In the name of Earth! (Именем Земли!)
- The man that couldn't do very much (Человек, который многого не умел)
- Captain (Капитан)
- Last chance (Последний шанс)
- Humans and nonhumans (Люди и не - люди)
- Category "Zed" (Категория "Зет")
Сasual Fuss (Временная суета)
- Сasual Fuss (Временная суета) - Short story, fanfiction.
- Caressing dreams of midnight (Ласковые мечты полуночи)
Poached fugu (Фугу в мундире)
- Duralumin sky (Дюралевое небо)
- Eastern ballad about a valourous cop (Восточная баллада о доблестном менте)
- Poached fugu (Фугу в мундире)
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- Transparent Stained-Glass Windows (Прозрачные Витражи)
- Nuclear Dream (Атомный Сон)
- Evening conference with the Special Deputy (Вечерняя беседа с господином особым послом)
- Footsteps from behind (Шаги за спиной)
- Ambassadors (Переговорщики)
- Achaulia Lalapta (Ахауля Ляляпта)
- Men's talk (Мужской разговор)
- Professional (Профессионал)
- Coincidence (Совпадение)
- Very important cargo (Очень важный груз)
- Time of moving pictures (Время движущихся картинок)
- Case history, or games that play people (История болезни, или Игры, которые играют в Людей)
- Night Watch (Ночной Дозор)
- Coblandy-Batur and Barsa-Kelmes (Кобланды-батыр и Барса-Кельмес)
- Argentum key (Аргентумный ключ)
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Building of the Epoch (Стройка века)
- Building of the Epoch (Стройка века)
- Come Off Clear (Сухими из воды)
- Buy a Cat (Купи кота)
- Bloody Orgy in the Martian Hell (Кровавая оргия в марсианском аду)
- If You Contact Us Right Now... (Если вы свяжетесь с нами прямо сейчас...)
- Girl with Chinese Lighters (Девочка с китайскими зажигалками)
- A New, New Fairy Tale (Новая, новая сказка)
- Don't Panic! (Без паники!)
Dive to the Stars (Донырнуть до звезд)
- We Are Not Slaves (Мы не рабы)
- Gadget (Гаджет)
- Dreamweaver (Плетельщица снов)
- I'm Not in Hurry (Не спешу)
- Dive to the Stars (Донырнуть до звезд)
- Evolution of the Scientific Worldview, Based on Fiction Samples (Эволюция научного мировоззрения на примерах из популярной литературы)
- From Columba to Hercules (От Голубя - к Гергулесу)
- Doctor Lem and Nanotechs (Доктор Лем и нанотехи)
- Nothing to Divide (Нечего делить)
- Nanotale (Наносказочка)
Note (Ремарка)
- New Novel "Note" (Ноый роман "Ремарка")
- Drill Away! (Провернуть назад!)
- Steamed Plots (Выпаренные сюжеты)
- If I Wrote "Red Riding Hood" (Если бы я писал "Красную Шапочку")
Recurring Funeral (Периодическая тризна)
- We Aren't Locals Here Ourselves... (Сами мы не местные...)
- Going to the Movies (Хождение в Кино)
- Recurring Funeral (Периодическая тризна)
- Apostles of the Tool (Апостолы инструмента)
- Cripples (Калеки)
Unpublished and early works
- Adventures of Stor(Пpиключения Стоpа) - 1989, Alma-ata, published only on the Internet.
- 13-th City(Тpинадцатый гоpод) - 1989, Alma-ata, early work.
- Pier of the golden ships(Пpистань Желтых Коpаблей) - 1990, Alma-ata, early work.
- The Eighth Colour of the Rainbow(Восьмой цвет pадуги) - 1992, Alma-ata, early work.
Incomplete Works
- Creed(Кредо) - 2003, Moscow, still incomplete.
- Rogue's tale(Плутовской роман) - 2005-2006, Moscow, author is working now.
External links
- Short annotations of Lukyanenko's books, an extensive biography and bibliography, and excerpts from English translations can be found here: http://www.rusf.ru/lukian/english/
- Official website (Russian)
- Author's LiveJournal can be read at http://doctor-livsy.livejournal.com/ (Russian)