Aleksei Ivanov
ABOUT THE FIGHTING RIVERS
“What amazes is the ease with which these almost seven hundred pages fly by. This novel is one of those when readers say: I opened it, did not have time to blink an eye, and immediately found myself on page three hundred. And then immediately on seven hundred.“
FONTANKA
“Ivanov is an engineer of literature, a mechanic of historical science. The heroes of his prose are always part of a great historical machine. Ivanov opens the outer shell, shows readers how this mechanism works, which gear rotates faster and which fails, which screw is more important, which handle allows the machine to move in the other direction and why it stalls.“
GORKY MEDIA
ABOUT SHADES OF THE TEUTONS
“The authors who know how to write exciting and unconventional books for the general public can be counted on one hand. And of these few, Aleksei Ivanov can confidently count on a yellow jersey...
The commercial „blockbuster“ character of „Shades of the Teutons“ by no means automatically means that it lacks really strong elements and artistic depth. The majestic battle scenes in Ivanov‘s text are built with a truly Tolkienian epic sweep and as such are unprecedented in post-Soviet Russian literature...
The novel works magnificently: it engages the reader, entertains, abducts, and puts our external everyday world on pause. ... Now we have, if not our own Stephen King, at least our own Robert Harris.“
GALINA YUZEFOVICH in MEDUZA
ABOUT THE GEOGRAPHER HAS DRUNK THE GLOBE
“On one page you can laugh, on the next you can cry, or at least sniff your nose out of sympathy with this ridiculous, touching and charming hero and the people around him. Like a huge source of strength for the soul, "Geographer" pumps new blood into the channels of emotional perception through literature and lets many readers again - literally as the first time - feel very simple and familiar things: winter, love, wind, trust, loneliness, the smell of cigarette smoke, the taste of vodka, the headache of a hangover.“
GALINA YUZEFOVICH
ABOUT THE DOG-HEADED
“"A rich, atmospheric American thriller, moved to our native aspen forest, which uses all our Russian phobias... of course the reader is hoodwinked, but extremely clever."
ST. PETERBURG VEDOMOSTI
"A clever, never boring, atmospheric novel, written in good literary language... exciting not as a "mystical thriller", but as a novel about the violent conflict between parallel social worlds."
AFISHA
"The foundation of the novel is not the series of supernatural events, but the conflict between two worlds within one state. The author succeeds in illustrating in a very unusual way how Moscow differs from the rest of Russia".
Journal FOR ALL MEN
"An exciting, well-thought-out and intelligently constructed book that challenges the reader to solve puzzles that are extremely interesting, and provides imaginative worlds worth thinking about."
KOMMERSANT
ABOUT THE FOOD SHACK
"Ivanov is the Russian Stephen King... Like him, he has written an honest genre novel without postmodern quirks or superfluous winking with the reader."
AFISHA
"Vampirism in the novel actually means the death of human thought as soon as it is caught in the rules of a particular group. And it doesn't matter whether it's party affiliation or class affiliation... You feel comfortable in their laps, you feel needed, but... that's not you anymore."
MEDIUM
"Seductive, plot-driven, very realistic despite the vampire bites."
FORBES
"Ivanov succeeds in the most important thing: one believes him this world of pubertal "leeches", mysterious leaders and other bloodsuckers."
LITERATURNO
"The vampire plot, apparently mechanically incorporated into a retro setting, is not only the plot driving moment, but also very pragmatically expands the target group of the novel to younger readers, who were no longer in a pioneer summer camp, but have seen quite a few B-movies."
MEDUZA
ABOUT TOBOL
"A terrific novel about life in Siberia under Peter the Great."
NATIONAL BESTSELLER JURY
"Ivanov has reached a new level. For those familiar with his novels "Heart of Parma" and "Gold of Insurrection", it is obvious that "Tobol" is less dynamic, but more fundamental. This novel towers over the other two like a mature older brother."
NATIONAL BESTSELLER JURY
ABOUT HEART OF PARMA
"An inimitable master of historical storytelling. His visionary way of writing about the past gives the reader the sense of being a participant in or witness of large-scale historical events, yet at the same time feeling very close to the novel's protagonists. He unfolds a colourful, realistic large tableau of an epoch while managing to also portray deeply intimate, private moments in the lives of his characters. Frankly, I don't know how he does it. He is a writer of enormous, magical talent."
ELENA LAPPIN
