Tested on Myself

Popular modern Russian fantasy writer Nick (Nikolay Danilovich) Perumov was born on November 21, 1963. By education, an engineer-physicist—he graduated from the Department of Biophysics at the Faculty of Physics and Mechanics of the Leningrad Polytechnic Institute. Then, for about ten years, he worked in molecular immunology, and worked at the Leningrad Research Institute of especially pure biological preparations. The future author began writing his first stories in the late 1970s, but his first publication was the book “Descent of Darkness, or Middle-earth 300 years later,” issued in 1993 in Stavropol in a run of 50,000 copies. The author of many popular fantasy novels, including the trilogies “The Ring of Darkness” and “The Chronicles of Hiyervard,” the dilogy “Permitted Magic” and “The Enemy Is Unknown,” the novel “Black Blood” (co-authored with Svyatoslav Loginov), as well as science-fiction novels (co-authored with Polina Kaminskaya) “Soul Thieves” and “One on One.” Among the best-known works of Nick Perumov is the cycle of novels “The Keeper of Swords,” which includes “The Diamond Sword, the Wooden Sword” (1998), “The Birth of a Magus” (1999), “The Travels of a Magus” (2000), “The Loneliness of a Magus” (2001), “The War of a Magus: Debut” (2003), “The War of a Magus: Mittelspiel” (2004), “The War of a Magus: Endgame” (2006), “The War of a Magus: The End of the Game” (2006). In 2004, at the convention “Eurocon” in Bulgaria, Perumov was recognized as Europe’s best fantasy writer, and the following year he received the “Strannik” award for his contribution to Russian science fiction.