There are people in the world (martinarians) who, when choosing between good and bad, always choose bad. Not in the sense that they choose vice, but in the sense that they are looking for misfortune on their own, striving for suffering. While suffering, they release the energy of suffering, energypathy. Those who are endowed with the ability to absorb energypathy use it for their success and the success of their business. These are "princes". There are also “drivers” who squeeze energyopathy out of unfortunate Martinarii. As you might guess, most Martinarii live in Russia. Possessing such an endless source of energy, the princes each time succumb to the temptation to use energypathy, without turning to alternative options for overcoming the crisis. But you can’t get far on energypathy alone. The novel is written from the perspective of the main character with small inserts written in the third person. I tried to make the main character Eva, as they say, “a real woman,” so she is incredibly annoying to male readers. The first version of the novel was written in 1992-93, I remember thinking for a long time about how the characters should address each other. I decided to let them say “Mister” to each other. The world in the “League of Martinarii” is not real - it is fictional. But it so happened that while the novel was reaching the reader, the fiction became reality. Only the holographic televisions mentioned in the first draft of the novel have not yet been created. After some thought, I made a second edition, where there is more reality, less fantasy. And yet a certain conventionality, a certain timelessness in “The League” has been preserved. Whether this is good or bad is for the readers to judge.© Marianna Alferova, Fantlab