In the world of literature, it happens that a novel written by one author is eventually picked up by other writers and grows into a whole cycle. The result is a very exciting, varied and unique series of books. This is exactly what happened with Sergei Lukyanenko's book "Zastava", which became the first part of the "Borderlands" series. The theme was continued by Alexander Gromov, Sergey Volkov, Valentin Kholmogorov and other authors.
All books, and there are already ten of them, are stories that are not connected with each other. Only in some of them there are mentions of heroes from previous novels, as well as all of them are united by one place of action - the Centrum. This is the center of the universe, around which there are other planets.
Often, it is the heroes from Earth who are sent here to become border guards or smugglers. This world has its own rules and laws. After all, even a banal antibiotic will cost much more than any treasures.
From the first book, you will learn about how the earthling Ivan, unexpectedly even for himself, ended up in the Centrum. Here he serves as a border guard, responsibly approaching his work. And then he suddenly learns that the "molecular plague" is the work of people, or not quite people. In any case, trouble must be dealt with as quickly as possible, otherwise the epidemic will spread to the Earth.
Centrum is a place where literally everyone can get through special portals. You just need to know how and when to do it. But sometimes there are situations when the heroes get here the most mysteriously and often even lose their memory. In addition, this place is not at all safe, so you always need to be on the alert and not give in to difficulties.
If you want to enjoy some really interesting fighting fiction books then we recommend you download the Frontier series or read it online. She has received many awards and positive feedback fans, so it definitely deserves the attention of every reader.
Borderlands. Inter-author cycle of works- cycle fantastic works, begun by the writer Sergei Lukyanenko with the novel "Zastava" and continued by other authors, both in collaboration with him and independently. The works do not have a common storyline. The heroes of the novels also do not intersect with each other, with the exception of the second and seventh novels, where the heroes of the Outpost are mentioned in the context of the events of the novel Reverse (2) and Synthesis (7). Stories are united only by locations (Earth, Centrum), and those described in the first book the necessary conditions to move from world to world (portals), as well as characteristics the central of the worlds of the described universe - the Centrum.
Plot
Centrum - central world the universe surrounded by the "petals" of the planets, to which, and from which, it is possible to get through portals opened by the so-called "guides". Theoretically, each of us can become a conductor, you just need to understand how to open it and where it leads. Once upon a time, Centrum was strong and powerful, and technologically far superior to Earth. However, for a reason not fully understood and not fully clarified, he was beset by a strange epidemic, called the "molecular plague", which destroyed all hydrocarbons and their compounds, and threw the Centrum economy back centuries, in the era of steam engines. Now Centrum, for reasons of its own survival, is forced to put up with and cooperate with "outsiders" - people from other worlds-petals. Aliens come mainly from the Earth, and become either border guards who catch violators of local simple laws, or smugglers, because in Centrum simple antibiotics are sometimes more expensive than gold...
History of creation
The inter-author cycle began in 2013 with the publication of the novel Outpost. The novel, in addition to the main title, has the subtitle "Borderlands", like the rest of the books in the series. The second and third novels in the series, "Reverse" and "AWOL" were written by Sergei Lukyanenko in collaboration with Alexander Gromov and Mikhail Tyrin, respectively. The fifth novel in the series, The Recruit, is written by Vladimir Vasiliev, with whom Lukyanenko has already collaborated on the creation of the novel Day Watch (2000). Vasilyev is also the author of the first spin-off in the universe of the Watches - the novel The Face of the Black Palmyra (2000).
The first book in the series, Zastava, was published by the AST publishing house in 2013 with a circulation of 80,000 copies. The second and subsequent novels were published in more modest editions ("Reverse" only 40,000 copies).
An interesting fact: the date of writing the novel "Synthesis" (7) is known and indicated by the author, Sergei Slyusarenko, at the end of the work: April-August 2012, while the first novel in the series, "Zastava", was published in 2013. From this, some discrepancies in the description of the features of the Centrum in the novel by S. Slyusarenko and the works of other authors become clear.
In 2016, the AST publishing house released a set of 4 books "Legends Centrum", combined into one cardboard box. The publication includes the first four novels in the series: Outpost; Reverse ; AWOL; Renegades.
According to Sergei Lukyanenko, the cycle will be completed. Quote: “... the cycle will be completed by those who started it. The cycle promises to be long, diverse, but finite.”
In addition, the author of the eighth book of the cycle, Valentin Kholmogorov, stated the following on his personal blog: "As for the question of the future of the Borderland cycle, yes, I know something. Before the end of this year (2016), the ninth and penultimate book will be released series called "Breaking". I will not reveal all the secrets, I will only say that readers will again see familiar names, both on the pages of the book and on its cover :). Well, the tenth book, tentatively titled "The Hearth", most likely , will be released next year, 2017. She will complete the cycle."
Awards and prizes
- Award "Constellation Ursa Major" of the fantasy festival "Constellation Ayu-Dag" and the International Union of Writers, 2013.
- RosCon, 2015, Inter-author project
List of works
- Outpost (2013). Author: Sergey Lukyanenko;
- Reverse by Alexander Gromov;
- AWOL (2014). Author: Sergey Lukyanenko in collaboration with Mikhail Tyrin;
- Renegades (2015).
- Recruit (2015). Author: Vladimir Vasiliev;
- Collector (2016). Author: Dmitry Kazakov;
- Synthesis (2016). Author: Sergey Slyusarenko.
- Wings (2016). Author: Valentin Kholmogorov
Short synopses of works
« Outpost» . When an ordinary Muscovite Ivan happened to be in the Centrum, he could not believe his eyes, and believing, he remained there, to serve as a border guard, in the border guard corps. While serving, he learns that the "molecular plague" is the work of human or not human hands, and that the same epidemic can hit the Earth, and this must be prevented at any cost...
« Reverse". Have you tried to stop a determined person who forgot himself in a strange world and yearns to remember? Don't even try. Nothing will come of it. Have you tried to stop a determined woman who dreams of returning her beloved? Don't try either. But a beginner, who has recently discovered the ability to penetrate the Centrum, can be twirled as you like. For the time being. Especially if he naively believes that being a border guard is boring and a smuggler is romantic...
« AWOL". There are no ideal plans, - an ordinary Moscow businessman Stepan Zaitsev had to make sure of this. Having agreed to replace his twin brother, who had gone AWOL, an employee of the operational bureau of the border division in the mysterious Centrum, he suddenly found himself in the very heart of a strange, hostile, deadly dangerous world. A world where the calm and not at all warlike " business person"you have to learn how to pretend and lie, endure hunger and pain, fight and kill ...
« Renegades". A former smuggler nicknamed Messenger and his "colleague" Kostyl unexpectedly turned out to be the keepers of a sample of a unique weapon, shipped from Earth to an unknown addressee and strictly prohibited in the Centrum. But who was the weapon intended for? What power, hitherto unknown, is ready to enter the struggle for power over the Centrum? And what role in the new round big game will the artist Oleg Sotnikov, abandoned in the Centrum, play? ..
« Recruit". The coastal state of Javal, rich in the south, lazy and sleepy, does not like change - and why should they, if a comfortable and calm life is already so beautiful? However, it is in the steppes of Javal that a complex multi-way operation begins, in which a variety of players are involved - from the secret services of Klondal and Surgan to smugglers, bandits and representatives of the border guards. However, the main figure quite unexpectedly becomes a young computer scientist Kostya Stepanov, who decided to earn extra money as a simple porter for merchants ...
« Collector". Such a collection - neither sell nor show. "Collecting" visits to bizarre realities, the guide reached the Centrum, where he discovered the secret camp of the Tsadian Inquisition. Preparing preachers in it are taught to handle not only a prayer book, but also a machine gun and explosives ... An eccentric beauty with mysterious biography, intelligence agents, border guards, clerics obsessed with a thirst for power, and even outsiders standing behind them from who knows what world ... isn't it too much for a simple collector?
« Synthesis". If you sincerely dream about something, then the dream will come true. So Oleg Shergin's dream of contact with extraterrestrial civilization. As a result of a chain of incredible events, he ends up at the Centrum and becomes a graduate student at one of the most respected universities in Lorea. Oleg even helped the monkeys restore historical justice - after all, they are also intelligent, and their home planet is also a “petal”, only there are forces that do not agree to recognize the existing status quo and are ready to do anything to “replay” the balance of power in the Centrum, depriving it of the status of the central world ...
« Wings". Private pilot Dmitry could not even imagine that his two-seater aircraft of the original design would become the subject of intense interest from intelligence agents. Especially - agents who came from another world. And having found himself in this universe, he finds himself at the very epicenter of the cunning political intrigues that the rulers of Surgan weave in the struggle for unlimited power over the Centrum.
Whatever book in this cycle I didn’t take on, I quit before I finished reading it.
"Zastava" finished halfway. Then, nevertheless, I stopped reading this nonsense, which, it seems, was released as part of the same project as the news of the first channel - artistic value and there is practically no logic in constructing the plot, but propaganda - at least rake it with a shovel.
"Reverse" threw much earlier. The story is simply unreadable: it feels like reading a heap of pieces of different text. One gets the impression that Lukyanenko and Gromov finished writing it in turn, while not reading at all what the previous one managed to write.
And so on. Thought there might be something wrong with me? I looked at the statistics on Fantlab: there were 71 reviews for the first book in the series, mostly negative, for the penultimate and last - as much as a proud one. Yes, and to the entire cycle that has existed since 2013, mine is the third, which indicates the demand for these books among readers.
If I were asked to describe the cycle in one word, I would not even hesitate. The most appropriate word is "hack". It's kind of funny to see The Chronicles of Amber next to the "Borderland" in similar works. It's like comparing the Zaporozhets with the SpaceX Falcon.
Rating: 1
Only, here, natural rubber is polyisoprene. Those. Synthetic isoprene rubber is eaten by these bacteria, while natural rubber is disdained. Nonsense, however!
The worst thing is that many of these polymers have analogues: cellulose, chitin, proteins, etc. With them, how to be?
Everything is very tight.
Rating: no
IMHO, the idea is good, but the implementation let us down. I read books to which Lukyanenko had a hand. Disappointed.
The universe is raw. One gets the impression that the logic of the world is not thought out to the end. Lukyanenko's characters are often busy with things that do not really move the plot, but fill the place in the book, preventing the reader from getting bored between the key points of the story. Here, there is no goal at all.
Score: 5
As a rule, when it comes to the author-to-author cycle, it is unlikely that something excellent turns out, and often we are dealing with a low-quality product aimed only at making a profit or thanks to big name franchise / writer (the same “Patrols” by Lukyanenko or the universe of S.T.A.L.K.E.R.), or after investing in advertising and promotion of both the beginning of the cycle and the entire cycle (the universe of “Metro 2033”). Of the pluses, it is still worth noting that you can find for yourself interesting writer, with the work of which you want to get acquainted outside the cycle. Unless, of course, you manage to break through tons of waste paper or are lucky to accidentally stumble upon his works among the others (as I had, for example, with Denis Shabalov or now Valentin Kholmogorov, who wrote, in my opinion, the most successful novel Wings after Zastava ).
So now, when, on the whole, not bad and, as for me, very much interesting book"Outpost" by Sergei Lukyanenko was announced as the beginning of an inter-author cycle, it became clear that with a high probability something like the above projects awaits us. It is good that the cycle turned out to be final and amounted to only 10 books, and the writers were quite eminent. But unfortunately, even this could not save him from failure, which, in fact, turned out to be the last novel of the franchise, and almost all other works were such passing ones. There was a feeling that the writers themselves understood that their work was unlikely to be of interest to anyone (or the payment did not suit them), therefore they did not go into the described world, they did not work out the plot in detail, and Lukyanenko himself would hardly read the result of their work, otherwise how can one explain so many contradictions with the first book in other works. Slyusarenko's "Synthesis" was especially distinguished, which should not be read in any case. And like a cherry on the cake, the franchise, which, in theory, was supposed to end with the confrontation between the heroes described earlier in the books and the terrible Hearth (otherwise, why was it hinted in the Reverse that the border guards, together with the Striker, were looking for an entrance to the world of the Hearth, found something interesting and involve the protagonist of the novel in this?), but in the end it came down to a boring walker of the protagonist of the Outpost and his new companion, with a bunch of ridiculous plot moves, with an attempt to give answers to questions that arose among readers after reading the first book, but in the result is even more confusing, and as a result with an absolutely ridiculous ending in the spirit of the fantasies of a pompous teenager.
As they say, they meet by clothes, but see off by mind. Uma's last book I didn’t meet much, the only question arose, why read the previous books of the cycle, if they are of such a passing quality, and they don’t make a special contribution to the franchise, so my personal assessment of the cycle is a natural 2.
Finally, I would like to give advice to other readers:
1. If you are not familiar with this franchise, then it is better not to start. The ending is miserable, the books are mostly about nothing, so you need it? The maximum you can read the first book (I personally liked it).
2. If you are familiar only with the first book of the cycle and really want to know how it all ends, then you can immediately read the last "Hearth". Let's give a spoiler at the end of the previous book, so as not to waste energy on it. Or if you do not feel sorry for the time and want to understand the whole plot of the cycle, then you can read the penultimate "Rift" - in fact, only these three books are closely related. But she is also so boring and at the end so many pianos pour out of the bushes that I'm not sure if it's worth wasting time on it.
3. If you wish, you can also add Vasiliev's Recruit, whose heroes appear in The Rift, to the listed three books related to the plot, plus the rest of the readers noted that only this book was the only one worthy in the entire franchise. But if we talk about worthy works, then I would advise you to read "Wings" by Valentin Kholmogorov - as for me, it is very coolly written. The end, of course, as in all other novels in the franchise, may seem a little drawn out, but this does not spoil the impression of the book at all. In general, it can even be read as a separate novel, outside the specified cycle.
4. And finally, if you really liked the world of the Borderlands and did not cause rejection, then you can try to read further books in order. The only thing is, in no case do not read "Synthesis"! It's just darkness. Only Ochag can compete with him in terms of the level of delusion. And if you are reading the second book “Reverse” and don’t understand why you are wasting time on it, then you can immediately go to point 2 or 3 - the rest of the novels will be about the same: boring, strained and it’s not clear why read all this.
The promised spoiler link between the first and latest novels cycle:
Spoiler (plot reveal)
2-3 years have passed since Elimination of Azhel. At the sixteenth outpost, new employees appeared: both from the world of Earth and local ones. Surgan has been intensively preparing for war all this time and, as a result, unleashes it. After an unsuccessful offensive, they still gather their strength and eventually defeat all the resisting states. On the sly, Centrum gets rid of the border guards, including the burning of the sixteenth outpost.
The drummer with Romka and a new colleague Pogany are trying to get to the Marina in order to reach the management and find out further actions. On the way, they have to split up: Romka and Pogany end up in a military camp, where they stumble upon a living Eyzhel, who for some reason does not remember Romka, and Drummer finds an abandoned tunnel on old maps that runs under the Rift, and is going to use it, since the path along railway closed by Surgan. Along the way, he meets new comrades-in-arms: a recruit of the special services of the border guards and his leader Viorel (see the novel "The Recruit"). In passing, they say that they experimented with the genetic material of the indigenous inhabitants of the Centrum and found out that they belong to the Neanderthal species. Probably, at one time they were expelled from the Earth by more aggressive Cro-Magnons, one of whom kindly opened a portal to Centrum for them (Neanderthals themselves cannot open portals - this explains the secret of the indigenous inhabitants of Centrum). And being more prone to development than aggression, Neanderthals eventually outstripped their parallel branch in technical terms, if not for the molecular plague.
Meanwhile, Pogany with Romka, who does not recognize him, Eyzhel and General Zaitsev (an insignificant character, met in "AWOL" - we just find out part of his biography and once again we are convinced of his manner of setting everyone up) fall under artillery fire in the camp, from where they successfully carry off their legs, only Romka becomes gray-haired. Azhel eventually takes away from Zaitsev detailed map Centrum, printed on Earth, and leaves, Zaitsev falls into the portal to Earth, and Romka and Pogany are left alone in the steppe again, where they are accidentally picked up on the spirit lamp by Udarnik and company. After that, in a friendly company, they reach an abandoned city in front of the Rift, in the old temple they learn that all worlds are interconnected through a network of stationary portals, and finally find the required tunnel through the Rift, where they meet a monkey helping them go through the tunnel.
As it turned out, the Rift is not such a terrible place as Fiddler said, but only last city monkeys among the jungle. Here, Striker meets with the elder of the monkeys, learns that before the arrival of people, the entire Centrum was a jungle inhabited only by monkeys, until people pushed them back. As for the monkeys, they communicate telepathically: this is the secret why they use only nouns - they do not need other words to describe the world around them, and he is telepathically shown the threat looming over the Earth from the Hearth, as well as the death of Pogany. At the end of the telepathy session, Drummer himself begins to communicate with monkeys using thoughts.
In the morning, they are sent to the other side of the Rift, where they discover the Surgan base, trying to assemble guided missiles with monkeys as pilots, but so far without success. The main characters are caught, they run away, destroy the base along the way with the help of other prisoners, and in the end, they almost end up being killed by the scientist they pardoned. As a result, part of the team is saved by Viorel, opening a portal to his world, after which they go back to the Centrum to save the others using a time paradox, but the Filthy is still killed. The rest return to Viorela's world.
Here he explains that his world is the same world of the Hearth, which lives in a stream opposite in time to the Earth. Therefore, Angel is alive and therefore they do not abandon attempts to bring the molecular plague to earth, only after failed attempts they do it in their past - the future of the Earth. And since they know they've been successful in the Striker's apartment, that's why they keep returning to that place to activate the plague. This is done in order to prevent technological development, which entailed an even greater catastrophe and, as a result, the end of the world both in the Centrum and on Earth. It is connected with wireless transmission electrical energy: at Centrum, these experiments have already begun to be carried out and so far have only led to problems with magnetic field Centrum, after which the fochakovites unleashed a molecular plague on him and the experiments became impossible. Now the same thing is starting to happen on Earth. Viorel is against such methods, that's why he helps Drummer with the company. Striker is now required to re-thwart the plague threat on Earth.
And for those who have read only the Outpost and want to immediately find out how it all ended, summary Hearth:
Spoiler (plot reveal) (click on it to see)
Having got to his home after the peace of the Hearth, the Striker contacts Berndt, the head of the border guards in the Marina, by phone. After the Udarnik explains the problem and announces a period of a month before the plague is launched, Berndt gives him an assistant, Laura, and offers to find a scientist in the Centrum, whose experiments can lead to the closure of the ability to create portals to Earth. Like, we'd better meet the fochakovites at the stationary portal (only where it is - it's not clear), than we will carry the defense in the apartment.
Drummer and Laura fly to Kaliningrad, where, after a fight with the flight attendants and a call to the police, Laura drags Drummer through the portal to the Centrum. Here they first find the professor's assistant and find out that Angel is already there and half a step ahead of them. After they go to the university, where they communicate with a graduate student and find out that the professor’s research and experiments that led to the destruction of the electromagnetic field are connected with the experiments of Tesla, who did not find any use for them on Earth and continued his research at the Centrum, for which he visited this university. Having learned the address of the laboratory from the graduate student, Striker and Laura go to where they find the dead professor. Following the trail, Angel takes his assistant hostage and goes with him to the experimental tower, the launch of which will probably close the portals. The drummer logically determines the location of the tower and they follow Azhel, saving the circus monkey along the way.
Having reached the place, the Drummer with Laura find a mined tower and Azhel with the professor's assistant. After them, Berndt also arrives, with whom they prevent the explosion, and Eyzhel escapes to his world. But before launching the tower and destroying the portals, they learn from the assistant that not portals will be destroyed, but all guides. Laura accepts this, the Drummer refuses, but Berndt does not ask anyone, kills the assistant and turns on the control panel. When the tower is almost launched, the remote control explodes and kills Berndt. Waking up after the explosion, the Drummer realizes that he is alive, but he can no longer open the portals, and learns that Berndt was Laura's stepfather, after which they bury the dead and go to the Singing Forest - a stationary portal to the world of the Wongs, where they intend to find a stationary portal to their native the world of monkeys and at the same time the world of Hearth. Along the way, they meet an outpost, the border guards of which also can no longer open portals, they find themselves captured by militant nomads, kevchegs, from which they successfully escape into the Singing Forest.
In the world of the Wong, they learn from the elder the location of the portal, and after a day of travel and encounters with a number of anomalies, they reach it. The chrysopas of the rescued monkey shows them the exact location of the portal with a light. In the world of monkeys, Drummer and Laura meet their city-on-the-trees (hello to the elves), learn from the elder that initially the pacifists in the Centrum were the focimen, who wanted peace and prosperity and were expelled from there. The monkey helped them escape by opening a portal to their world. The monkeys were more developed, so the foci took and improved their technology and brought out the high molecular plague bacterium. By the time Striker and Laura arrived, 100 years had already passed since their exodus to the monkey world.
The main characters are given a guide who brings them to the Hearth base. Here they are met by the foci, led by Azhel, and put in jail. Having made friends in prison with an elderly professor - an opponent of Ochag's methods, they escape with the participation of a monkey rescued from the circus, arm themselves with machine guns, shoot oncoming ochagists and reach the central console, where the professor isolates the base from the outside world so that none of the remaining ochagists escape, and launches base self-destruction. After that, Angel in molecular armor bursts in, throws Laura aside, almost kills the Striker, but she is paralyzed by the professor, who admits that she was his best student. After his speech, a ventilation grate falls from above and a circus monkey offers to run with him.
Once on the surface, the heroes watch the explosion of the Hearth base. It's nothing that they destroyed it in the present, because the foci will continue to try to launch the plague in their past - the future of the Earth, but the Striker still considers this mission completed. It remains to detect and prevent experiments on Earth that led to the catastrophe described by the Fochakovites, for which they need to find a stationary portal from the world of monkeys to Earth.
In the epilogue, we are shown that Striker and Laura decided to destroy the root of all troubles - Tesla's laboratory. After a successfully organized fire, all his works were destroyed. Laura and Striker remain on Earth in 1895, as follows from an excerpt from a newspaper article.
P.S. Surprisingly, compressed form it does not look as crazy as it looked when reading a book, when almost throughout the entire story you howl at the absurdity of what is happening. In order not to repeat myself, I cited all the complaints about the last book in a review to it: if a number of plot moves are interesting, you can also read it.
7 - 0 (complete, monstrous game and illogicality of what is happening, written in an infinitely clumsy language)
