There are actually 1,928,361,724 reasons to start reading books by author Sergei Lukyanenko. But to keep this short, and to help you keep your sanity, we’ve chosen the top 15 reasons why you should put this incredible Russian sci-fi author on the top of your reading list.
#1. Terry Pratchett is his favorite writer.
#2. He smokes a pipe exactly like this famous detective:
#3. He practically invented urban fantasy in Russia with his Night Watch series. (Or, at least, that’s what the reviewers say.)
#4. Sergei Lukyanenko can write you a book and be your therapist: He was training to be a psychiatrist before becoming a full-time writer.
#5. He managed to publish books and complete medical school at the same time. (He might be a genius.1)
#6. Sergei “The Doctor” Lukyanenko’s books have been translated into more than 20 languages.
#7. His first novel, Knights of the Forty Islands, was published in 1990 when he was just 22 years old.
#8. He’s the youngest person to ever win the Aëlita Award, the most prestigious fantasy award in Russia.
#9. The Aëlita Award is one of the coolest looking awards you will ever see so, by default, this picture with Sergei holding the one should also be one of the coolest things you have ever seen.
#10. There is an entire secret message in his book The Genome that says: “This novel is a parody of space opera and cyberpunk. The author values your sense of humor...”
#11. Then, just for kicks, he wrote another secret message 2 years later, in his novel Spectrum.
#12.1Correction: He is a genius.
#13. He is happy to share his wisdom with us: “… the writer should not be detached from his own society and culture. If a Russian starts writing like an American, for example, he isn’t going to get translated in the United States – there are enough American writers there. It’s important that writers strike a balance between what’s interesting to people of different cultures, while not forgetting their own.”
#14. Did we mention that he’s Russian (he was born in Kazakhstan)?
#15. A spacecraft just landed on a comet last month. Super-exciting stuff. What better time to start reading science fiction books and see which other predictions they might just get right – especially novels from a Russian doctor-turned-writer genius with a sense of humor named Sergei Lukyanenko. Ура!
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