Bonfires of the Worlds

Prašchkevich, like that very Kipling’s cat, walks by himself—this is his main difference from most of our science-fiction writers. And not only from them. Boris Strugatsky formulated the human and literary nature of this author very precisely: “Multifaceted, knowledgeable, multi-talented, experienced.” And the key point here is “multifaceted.” That’s how it should be: a writer is obliged to change. And talk about “having found a niche” for a writer sounds like a sentence: a niche is already a place for the urn, to which readers bring mourning wreaths.

Prašchkevich keeps changing constantly—and this is one of his main virtues. In him lives restlessness, a craving for the road, for walking routes and flights across oceans, rooted since his youth, from the first “field” impressions. He wants to learn the world not from afar, but up close—with the eyes, hands, and skin: to knock on it with a geological hammer, to feel its wind and salt, its smoke and fog. And all this is not for the sake of a tourist marker “I was here,” but for the point of it—for the sake of a future book.

The collection includes the author’s works from different years.

Many of the texts included in the edition are provided in a new author’s revision and in places differ significantly from earlier publications.