The fate of man!.. Who controls it? How to recognize her? Is it enough to calculate the ascendant - the sign that rises above the horizon at the moment of birth - and draw up a horoscope? Is it really true that you can’t escape from fate? But the new short novel by the outstanding contemporary writer Nikolai Dezhnev is not about the stars. And not about astrology with its fateful arsenal. “The Ascendant of Kartavina” is an elegant literary construction, a novel about a novel within a novel, built on a complex system of mirrors turned face to face against the backdrop of the starry sky. The book ends with a selection of the author’s best stories. Take a look into Nikolai Dezhnev’s double looking glass, just be careful when looking at the reflection of your own face...