Literary Birthday – 11 April – Sergei Lukyanenko

Happy Birthday, Sergei Lukyanenko, born 11 April 1968.

Sergei Lukyanenko Quotes

1. I couldn’t manage to find the sort of book I wanted to read. So I said to myself, why not simply write the kind of book I want to read? Then I did. (Museum Studies Abroad)
2. What draws me to science fiction is mystery. What would happen if Earth were visited by aliens—kind and good sort of aliens—that put up Star Gates all over the planet, so that we could travel anywhere we wished? (Britannica)
3. The common good and the individual good rarely coincide. (Night Watch)
4. I often use detective elements in my books. I love detective novels. But I also think science fiction and detective stories are very close and friendly genres, which shows in the books by Isaac Asimov, John Brunner, and Glen Cook. However, whilst even a tiny drop of science fiction may harm a detective story, a little detective element benefits science fiction. Such a strange puzzle. (A-Z Quotes)
5. How easily the truth is lost, and how persistent lies are. (Night Watch)
6. That’s the hardest thing of all–never to become cynical, never to lose faith, never to become indifferent. (A-Z Quotes)
7. It is boring to haunt a writer, and even more so to haunt a celebrity. I would haunt a literary figure! Possibly some superhero, maybe even James Bond. Constant adventures, fights, beautiful women–much more interesting that watching a writer who taps on computer all day long, or a celebrity posing in front of cameras. (A-Z Quotes)
8. Fairy tales lie just as much as statistics do, but sometimes you can find a grain of truth in them. (A-Z Quotes)
9. It’s great to be excited by your profession, whether you are a doctor or a writer. I started writing books when I was in medical school and, by the time I graduated, I realised that writing was more exciting to me than being a doctor. And if I tried to be a doctor and a writer, then both would suffer. (A-Z Quotes)

Sergei Lukyanenko is a Russian author of science fiction and fantasy. He is best known for his six-volume Night Watch series, a groundbreaking body of work in the urban fantasy genre. He is known for his action-packed plots and his questioning of the moral dilemma of keeping one’s humanity while being strong. He was influenced by several Russian authors and the Americans, Robert A. Heinlein and Stephen King, Lukyanenko began writing in the mid-1980s. The initial volume of Night Watch transformed him into a literary celebrity, and the 2004 screen adaptation set a box-office record at the time. Lukyanenko has published over 40 books and has won 32 literary awards.

Source for image: A.Savin, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sergey_Lukyanenko_MOW_03-2011.jpg

by Amanda Patterson

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