Crowned Crag

The Leningrad school of fantasy gave the genre many glorious names. Georgy Martynov, Ilya Varshavsky, Vadim Shefner, Alexander Shalimov… But one of them truly stands out, and not just because its owner is a woman. Olga Larionova suddenly shone brightly... in the fantastic sky in the mid-sixties, instantly gaining a huge circle of admirers. “Leopard from the Top of Kilimanjaro”, we speak of it — about the novel which, according to online experts, “is not just considered one of Larionova's best books, — it can safely be added to the treasury of world fantasy. If the writer were American, she would surely have received the 'Hugo' or 'Nebula' awards (or maybe even both).” She was published infrequently, but almost every work coming out during those sparse years for fantasy (the sixties to the eighties) was a direct hit — that is, into the hearts of readers.

The cycle “Crowned Crag”, begun with the story “Chakra of the Centaur”, was written over a long period, about twenty years. The story, conceived as a joke, turned into a full-fledged “space opera” — a worthy response of ours to Hamilton's “Star King”. Travels in the Universe in the stories and novels of the cycle are combined with a romantic fairy tale, featuring knightly tournaments, robots, and fantastic flying creatures — crags, through whose eyes people see the surrounding world. But most importantly, the stories told in the books of the cycle possess a particular humanity that distinguishes Larionova's creativity among most of her colleagues.