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Корвус Коракс: Роман
Место действия романа — сегодняшняя Москва, где отсутствует интернет, нет компьютеров, мобильных телефонов и даже телевидения, зато есть Большой Грязный Секрет. Его хранители думают, что сумели скрыть правду о прошлом. Они надеются сохранить в тайне то, что может произойти завтра. Но кое-что они упустили… Новый фантастический детектив Льва Гурского, автора бестселлеров "Убить президента" и "Перемена мест", — не мрачная антиутопия и не роман ужасов. Наоборот, это весело и совсем не страшно. Поначалу. Ведь все самое неприятное имеет обыкновение подкрадываться к нам внезапно — и оттуда, откуда его не ждешь.
373 pages, Kindle Edition
Published May 16, 2019
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
September 9, 2020
This is a SF/alt-history/political satire novel titled Corvus Corax, published in 2019 and nominated for the Интерпресскон award – one of the main Russian SFF awards – in 2020. I haven’t read anything else by the author.
The story starts with the protagonist, - Innokenty Lomov, agent of the Federal Inspectorate for Copyright, who is quite satisfied with current Russian political situation, politically inactive and more interested in stories and comics about Soviet spies, especially, the best of them, Willie Fisher. He finds a seller of illegal audio. In this world (and the time is around 2020s) there are no CDs or cassettes or even Vinyl records, and audio is recorded on birds – high quality stuff on imported and expensive parrots, pirate copies – on local ravens. From this we deduce the reason for the title, for Corvus corax is Latin for raven. The audio-pirate escapes the fee by releasing all ravens outside the studio. Lomov in bad mood returns home but on the way there sees one very old raven, whom he takes with him. Quite soon he finds out that the raven is can reproduce not only a modern pop singer, but some rather old stuff from talks of some man with Georgian accent (Georgia as a state in Caucasus) and something in German. While the protagonist is unaware, reader can easily guess from the talk that one speaker is Stalin and therefore it is something most likely about Molotov-Ribbentrop pact of August 1939. While he is oblivious and dreaming about selling the antique bird (they are high priced irrespectively of their records), he meets others, who are seeking for the bird, and they are far from friendly. From them he is saved by no other than his adored Willie Fisher, who despite being maybe a hundred years old, is may better in hand combat (and other things) than most young bullies.
The story does not try to make a believable world – it is just a play for the author and a political satire. It is extremely lively written, a great adventure romp! Before the book was out, the author was accused by pro-Putin press and even some SF authors in taking money from Navalny for the promotion of the later on book’s cover. This is a clear fake, as anyone can see, but it is true that among a large number of Russian political actors presented in the book (all with fake names), there is one definitely based on Navalny.
The story starts with the protagonist, - Innokenty Lomov, agent of the Federal Inspectorate for Copyright, who is quite satisfied with current Russian political situation, politically inactive and more interested in stories and comics about Soviet spies, especially, the best of them, Willie Fisher. He finds a seller of illegal audio. In this world (and the time is around 2020s) there are no CDs or cassettes or even Vinyl records, and audio is recorded on birds – high quality stuff on imported and expensive parrots, pirate copies – on local ravens. From this we deduce the reason for the title, for Corvus corax is Latin for raven. The audio-pirate escapes the fee by releasing all ravens outside the studio. Lomov in bad mood returns home but on the way there sees one very old raven, whom he takes with him. Quite soon he finds out that the raven is can reproduce not only a modern pop singer, but some rather old stuff from talks of some man with Georgian accent (Georgia as a state in Caucasus) and something in German. While the protagonist is unaware, reader can easily guess from the talk that one speaker is Stalin and therefore it is something most likely about Molotov-Ribbentrop pact of August 1939. While he is oblivious and dreaming about selling the antique bird (they are high priced irrespectively of their records), he meets others, who are seeking for the bird, and they are far from friendly. From them he is saved by no other than his adored Willie Fisher, who despite being maybe a hundred years old, is may better in hand combat (and other things) than most young bullies.
The story does not try to make a believable world – it is just a play for the author and a political satire. It is extremely lively written, a great adventure romp! Before the book was out, the author was accused by pro-Putin press and even some SF authors in taking money from Navalny for the promotion of the later on book’s cover. This is a clear fake, as anyone can see, but it is true that among a large number of Russian political actors presented in the book (all with fake names), there is one definitely based on Navalny.
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