“There are books whose plot, when retold, looks like feverish delirium. The Dark Lord Darth Vader arrives on an imperial cruiser to Earth in 1941? Joseph Stalin enters into an alliance with Darth Vader?! Imperial stormtroopers, together with soldiers of the Red Army, heroically fight against Wehrmacht soldiers??? Such a plot has a 99.9% chance of being a monstrous graphomania. And just one hundredth of a percent - it turns out to be a subtle, on the very verge of a foul, parody - both of the sore books about “fallen to Stalin”, and of space science fiction in the spirit of Star Wars. But the most amazing thing is that at some point this playful ironic burlesque, balancing on the brink between trash and farce, becomes more than just a parody - and the author, without changing his facial expression, begins to talk about serious things... As you know, in Russia There are two options - either we will fix everything ourselves, or aliens will fly in and help, and the first option is fantastic. So, Dubcek’s book is not fantastic, our past was fantastic. But perhaps it will help make our future fantastic.” Sergei Lukyanenko