Favorite

Kir Bulychev is the second most significant figure in domestic science fiction of the 20th century, after the Strugatsky brothers. Several generations of readers grew up on his books, and the first love of a reader is enduring and does not fade with the years. The founder of the Great Guslyar (a kind of northern analogue of the Solovetsky city with its famous NIICHAVO and its employees), the godfather of Alice Selezneva, a girl from the future of Earth, a chronicler of the labors and days of Dr. Pavlysh and his friends from the interplanetary spaceship "Segizha", a pilot on the river Chronos, connecting different shores of Russia across time... Kir Bulychev is multidimensional, like life itself; in his literary universe, there is room for playful pranks, biting, merciless irony, and the wisdom of a scientist and seer. It has everything but boredom.
Favorite. It is something like a pet cat or dog, only in human form. Such favorites live in specially designated rooms with a warning above the door: "Entrance without muzzles is forbidden". The owners of these favorites, called sponsors, are large alien beings up to four meters tall, much heavier and bulkier than humans. With scaly green paws and grasping, seemingly boneless fingers. The thing is, their home planet had to be saved from overpopulation, so part of its inhabitants were relocated here, to Earth, to the ruin of humanity...