Russian science fiction writer No. 1 talked about why Russian science fiction is better than Western ones, who controls human civilization
It is not for nothing that Vasily Golovachev bears the title of Russian science fiction writer No. 1. There are several dozen novels, and his books have circulations in the tens of millions. Recently the writer became a guest of the Krasnoyarsk fantasy festival "Eternal Sails". And he talked about why Russian science fiction is better than Western, who controls human civilization, and what his next book will be about.
- Vasily Vasilievich, just a few days ago your new book "They are here!" Appeared in the bookstores of Krasnoyarsk. - a collection of stories about aliens. Do you really think "they" are here?
- Sure! Otherwise, why would you need to write a book? I really believe that they are here, that aliens from other civilizations have ruled humanity for a long time. That is, our entire human culture, politics, economy operate in a mode of external control - and it is not so important, it is controlled remotely or through disguised “agents of influence” of aliens embedded in various structures. You can joke about it, you can laugh, but there is statistics, there is political news, there is the Internet, a careful reading of which allows you to notice a certain dynamics, a certain system. This system was called at different times in different ways, but the principles of management - they are clearly introduced from somewhere outside.
Here's another question, good or bad. I think that's good. Because we do not know what purpose the aliens who rule the world set. What do they want to achieve? Maybe they want us well and protect us from some trouble, do not allow us to repeat someone's fatal mistakes. Maybe they are doing everything to make humanity grow as soon as possible.
- Or extinct.
- I do not know. I just decided to sharpen this problem in my own way, to draw attention to it.
- It turns out that aliens, as a kind of higher intelligence, can punish and pardon. I wonder if science fiction writers believe in God? For example?
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- I do not believe in a Christian God, I am a materialist, a rationalist. I believe that all nature in itself is intelligent. That there is a kind of will that is higher than human will, higher than humanity as an intelligent system. And she is much smarter than a person, because humanity, in my opinion, is today in its infancy, in its infancy. I talk about this often in my books. Nature is a kind of extremely complex system that we are not yet able to cognize. And our relationship with this system, entity, call it what you want - this is the relationship between a child and an adult. We also have some childish ideas about God, forgive me: some sorcerer, a gray-haired old man with a long beard, sits on a cloud, looks after everything … No, these are our fantasies, our illusions. We (humanity) have not yet emerged from the nursery, and our beliefs,our religious systems only lead a person away from the true knowledge of the world around him.
- On your forum, you constantly communicate with readers who express their opinion about where you are right, where you are wrong in their books. But I have never met any of my colleagues to argue with you. Is it not customary for science fiction writers to discuss each other's books?
- In order to polemize, you need arguments, but they do not have them. Whether I am writing about deep space, or about Russia, or about the future, I always argue my position, my hypotheses. Who will argue with me? Moreover, fellow writers have created their own systems, their own pictures of the world, which I do not want to discuss. For example, Sergei Lukyanenko divided the whole world into black and white, day and night watch. But if you mix black and white, you get gray! And I do not want to be an apologist for the gray system, nor argue with its apologists.
- And which of the modern science fiction writers are you interested in?
- Many write … But if you want to receive my recommendations, they will not be. I have a good opinion of the books by Vadim Panov, Oleg Divov, Vladimir Vasiliev, Mikhail Uspensky, Andrey Belyanin (despite the comic context of his texts).
- And Bushkov?
- Once I read his books with pleasure, especially the cycle about Svarog - it is really talentedly invented and written. I do not like what Bushkov began to write later, all these conspiracy theories, alternative scenarios of history … This is all pseudohistory, pseudo-politics, and I am not interested. It is interesting when a person creates his own worlds, and does not revise ours.
- But all the writers you named in the genre of science fiction have been working for at least 15 years. And from the younger generation, from the budding science fiction writers, who do you think is the most promising?
- Alas, nobody. I hardly read the science fiction of the young. Except when I work on the jury of competitions. Unfortunately, I don't have time for this.
- Is science fiction a genre of predictions? Just the other day, the 100th anniversary of Conan Doyle's The Lost World is celebrated. A classic of the genre, one of the most popular science fiction novels, yet none of Conan Doyle's predictions have come true in a hundred years. Which of your predictions do you think will come true?
- A science fiction writer is not a prophet, that's what you need to understand. I am also not a predictor, not a futurist. I am interested in how a person will act in some extreme circumstances specially created by the author's imagination. This is important - psychology, relationships, experience. And the fact that in the course of the action one can make some predictions … well, some will come true, some - no, it doesn't matter to me.
Science fiction does not predict events, it anticipates discoveries. How I managed to anticipate some of the concepts of time research. For example, in the novel "VVG". After my books, serious scientists working in this direction came to the same conclusions as me.
- Do serious scientists read science fiction? Have you met them among your readers?
- And a lot. I received several interesting letters: "Vasily Vasilyevich, we are just starting to work on this problem, and you have already written how it will be solved."
- You didn't want to write a realistic novel?
- No never. I am not interested in reality as such. I am interested in its individual components: magic, fantasy, romance - what makes reality unpredictable, interesting, iridescent. I'm interested in the drive, changes in human nature, when at the beginning of the novel he was one, and by the end he changed - and it is important that people notice these changes.
- Why are you so little filmed? Recently the film "Forbidden Reality" based on the novel "Smersh-2" was released. Did you like him?
- Unfortunately, there is a lot of things that I do not agree with. Although I myself wrote the script for the film, the script and the final incarnation are not the same thing. So I'm angry with the filmmakers. I do not like "game fiction", such as "Avatar" - here are our enemies, they shot, everything ended well. And fantasy is much more subtle, deeper, more paradoxical than ordinary entertainment.
- Is Russian science fiction more complicated than Western one?
- Much! Much! Because our life is more complicated, that's why the fantasy is the same. We live smarter, we live harder, we seek justice, which, by the way, is not found in Western science fiction - I mean, it is not in the form of some genre-forming motive. I also write a lot about the fact that life in Russia, though difficult, is interesting.
- Will your next novel be about this too?
- I will not show my cards. It has already been written, there is no title yet. But there I again turned to a topic that none of the science fiction writers had ever covered. About what - I will not talk either.
- Well, tell me the working title.
- "The Adventures of a Pharmaconaut". I think this is a great book.
