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Itar-Tass
Sergei Lukyanenko's fantasy novels could be downloaded from his web site until last year.
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Taking Tips
Are sex-filled thrillers up your alley, or science-fiction fantasies? Think fast, because the bestselling novelist Sergei Lukyanenko is accepting suggestions online.
By Anna Malpas
Published: November 19, 2004
Riding a wave of fame since his science-fiction novel "Night Watch" (Nochnoi Dozor) became a hit movie last summer, author Sergei Lukyanenko plans to publish a new book in installments on his own web site, and has polled readers for creative-writing tips.
"What would you like the style of my new book to be?" Lukyanenko questioned readers recently on the blog site LiveJournal.com. He went on to ask whether the main character should be male or female, and whether the novel should focus on product placement or sex.
The prolific author, a psychiatrist by profession, has been writing short stories and novels since the late 1980s, but his trilogy about a battle between supernatural forces on Moscow's streets, "Night Watch," (1998), "Day Watch" (2000) and "Dusk Watch" (2004) is his best-known work, thanks to Timur Bekmambetov's films, the first of which came out in July, and the last of which is due to be shot next year.
The new novel won't be a continuation of the saga, Lukyanenko told readers of his LiveJournal site on Nov. 10, refusing to give out details of its title, plot or central characters. "This will be a new novel, not affiliated with any of [my] old cycles," he wrote. But Lukyanenko did promise to stick to a strict timetable for readers eager to know more.
"Beginning tomorrow, Nov. 11, I will start writing a new novel," he promised. By writing no less than 40,000 characters per week, he wrote, he will finish the novel in five months, just in time for his 37th birthday on April 11.
Members of LiveJournal, a site popular with Russian literati, responded enthusiastically. More than 2,000 people placed requests for their favorite genre, with the top choice being a "city fantasy like 'Night Watch.'" Content-wise, the book should have plenty of "ideas," voters overwhelmingly decided. Romance and sex polled a mere 70 and 82 votes, respectively.
The novel should be narrated in the first person, and that person should be male. Only 16.5 percent thought the main character should be a woman. As for the hero's age, 28 is just right, 446 voters said.
Joking about the buzz that last summer's "Night Watch" film generated with its profit-minded shots of the logos of Nescafe and cellular operator MTS, Lukyanenko asked his readers whether they would like to see more product placement in his new book. Two hundred seventeen voters thought it was a good idea.
Nevertheless, Lukyanenko is not collecting opinions in order to tailor the plot, he wrote. "I'll be grateful for people telling me about mistakes of various kinds, but that isn't the aim." The author has been using the blog for more than a year to respond to questions and comments about his books, taking the username Doctor Livesey, a character from Robert Louis Stevenson's "Treasure Island."
"I had a think about what the point of [LiveJournal] is for a writer," he wrote. "To argue with literary opponents? That's more fun to do on forums. To hear readers' opinions? Partly yes, but not every day. To read other people's blogs? Wonderful, but then why write your own? And this is what I decided: A writer needs a blog to write books."
The idea of publishing literary works online is not a new one for Russian writers. Journalist and poet Linor Goralik's recent book "Not Baby Food" originally came out as a collection of sketches on her LiveJournal web page. Other active contributors to the LiveJournal site include Russian-American writer Masha Gessen and poet and translator Dmitry Kuzmin.
But publishing work on the Internet is risky business for many authors, who gain thousands of readers but lose paying customers. In a recent scandal hotly discussed on LiveJournal, popular mystery writer Boris Akunin's latest novel, "Special Correspondent," mysteriously appeared on the Internet, and then disappeared again, all before it hit the bookstores.
Keeping future profits in mind, Lukyanenko will only publish the first half of his new novel on LiveJournal. That comes on the heels of his decision last year to stop the free downloading of novels from his official site, citing the reluctance of publishers to accept books already available on the Internet. These days, visitors to his official site must pay to download the electronic versions.
"These are norms of relations between authors and publishers that are accepted in civilized countries," Lukyanenko wrote on his official site to explain the decision. "Most Russian publishers also demand that their authors not display the text of their books on the Internet. I held out longer than almost all my colleagues."
Copyright © 2004 The Moscow Times. All rights reserved.
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June 27 - July 3, 2008 
