The Great Guslyar. Volume 2

Kir Bulychev (1934–2003) — a Soviet and Russian writer, translator, screenwriter, and orientalist, well known to many science fiction fans. His creative pseudonym Igor Vsevolodovich Mozheiko was formed from the name of his wife Kira Soshinskaya and the maiden name... of his mother — Maria Bulycheva. Mozheiko was born in Moscow. As a child, the boy loved to read, especially he was fascinated by the works of such science fiction writers as Alexander Belyayev and Ivan Efremov. After finishing school, Mozheiko entered the Moscow State Institute of Foreign Languages, where he learned English and Burmese. Later, he graduated from the postgraduate program at the Institute of Oriental Studies of the USSR Academy of Sciences and remained there to work. Mozheiko defended his candidate and doctoral dissertations on the history of Burma, engaged in translations, and wrote historical and geographical essays for various magazines. In academic circles, Igor Vsevolodovich was known for his publications on the history of Southeast Asia. The writer published his fantastic stories and novellas exclusively under a pseudonym: in the academic environment, science fiction literature was considered unserious, and Mozheiko could face condemnation from colleagues. The literary work of Igor Vsevolodovich was characterized by diversity: he published scientific works, journalistic articles, and artistic works. Bulychev had a particular fondness for cycles of works united by common characters, locations, or themes. These include the series about Doctor Vladislav Pavlysh, the resourceful girl from the future Alice, and the extraordinary city of the Great Guslyar, where reality is closely intertwined with fantasy. The prototype of the Great Guslyar was Veliky Ustyug, which Bulychev visited before he began working in fiction. The city impressed the writer so much that several years later he captured its image in his first story from the Guslyar series — "Connections of a Personal Nature." Since then, for a long period, Bulychev continued to release stories and novellas about the wonderful city and the extraordinary people who inhabit it.
Bulychev wrote about the Great Guslyar for several decades. The changes that occurred during this time in the life of both the author and the entire country had to be reflected in the Guslyar stories. The themes of Bulychev’s stories and his own understanding of fantasy also underwent changes. Nevertheless, in Guslyar, familiar heroes, alien life forms, a game of dominoes, and many other features of the Guslyar's phantasmagoric reality still await readers.
The second volume of the works about the Great Guslyar includes forty-two stories and four novellas by Bulychev.