Line #21 Creator/KirBulychev


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6	[[quoteright:190:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/190px-Bulichev_nekrolog_8924.gif]]
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8	Kir Bulychev is probably the most famous author of ScienceFiction and SpeculativeFiction for children in Russia, but before 1982 very few knew that he was a PenName of Dr. Igor Vsevolodovich Mozheiko (18 October 1934 – 5 September 2003), a well known historian and author whose popular history books often stood on the same shelves as his ''alter ego'''s SF. After graduating school he enrolled in a Moscow State Foreign Languages institute where he majored in South-Eastern Asian languages and became a specialist in Burmese history. He started writing early, right after graduating from the institute, under his real name, but most of his early works were popular history and geography essays about East Asia and realistic short stories.
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10	He received his Ph.D degree in 1965, around the time he first turned to a SF. Believing that the brass at the Institute of Oriental Studies, where he was employed at the time, wouldn't approve of such "frivolous" activity of their newly minted postdoc, he published his first stories (many of which he made up to entertain his daughter Alisa) under various pseudonyms in the popular ''Mir Priklyucheniy'' (Adventure World) almanac. His most famous pen name, though, wasn't among them: it had to wait until the next year.
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12	In 1966 an amusing incident happened in the ''Iskatel'' magazine, publishing detectives and science fiction. Just a day before the deadline for sending the work to printers, one of foreign SF stories was rejected. But as ill luck would have it, the cover of the magazine featuring the illustration to this very story was already printed. A tiny dinosaur sitting in a jar was sadly looking from the cover to the editors. To save the situation, a number of people decided each of them would write a story and the best story would go into the magazine. Dr. Mozheiko happened to win this urgent contest, and his story ''When did dinosaurs die out?'' went to print. To sign this unexpected creation he made up a new pen name based on his wife's name and his mother's maiden name. At this point he wasn't even suspecting that he was destined to become one of the most famous Russian SF writers.
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14	Besides numerous SF stories, translations of various American SF books, research works on history, Oriental and literature studies, Bulychev also wrote over two hundred poems and a lot of short stories. He also wrote the scripts for over twenty movies. The feature film ''Film/PerAsperaAdAstra'' AKA ''Humanoid Woman'' (1980), feature-length[[note]]A rarity in Soviet times[[/note]] animated cartoon ‘Animation/TheMysteryOfTheThirdPlanet’ (for these two he was awarded the State Prize in 1982) and ''Series/GuestFromTheFuture'' TV miniseries (1984) are considered among the best screen versions of Bulychev’s books.
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16	One of the central characters of his books, [[Literature/AliceGirlFromTheFuture Alisa Selezneva]], a courageous and curious girl from the future is especially beloved by the readers; screen versions of some of his gripping fanciful books contributed much to "Alisa’s cult" among teenagers of the 1980-90s. In a case of WriteWhoYouKnow, Alisa is named for his daughter, Alisa's mother Kira for his wife, and Alisa's father Igor for himself. It came to bite him later, though, when this mania forced him to churn up more and more ''Alisa'' books, which he came to somewhat resent, as he'd much prefer to write something else. He would resent that editors and readers were expecting new children tales from him. "But I try it not to be children SF that I'm writing and it's not only fiction for kids I write." – He said in one of the interviews.
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18	A versatile and prolific author, Bulychev wrote a great many other books, generally for adult audience: an ironical epic about a WeirdnessMagnet [[NothingExcitingEverHappensHere provincial town]] Literature/GreatGusliar, SpaceOpera cycle about a doctor Vladislav Pavlysh, and many others. While SF writer Bulychev was creating new worlds, historian Igor Mozheiko went on carrying out his research work. The latter issued a number of monographs, popular science books ‘7 and 37 Wonders’, ‘Pirates, Corsairs, and Raiders’, and ‘Year 1185: East - West’. Besides, he defended his doctoral dissertation on the theme: “The Buddhist Sangha and the State in Burma”
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20	Some of Kir Bulychev’s books were published in English: ''Literature/HalfALife'' (1977), ''[[Literature/GreatGusliar Gusliar Wonders]]'' (1983), ''Literature/EarthAndElsewhere'' (1985), ''Literature/AbductionOfASorcerer'' (1989), ''Literature/ThoseWhoSurvive'' (2000), ''[[Literature/AliceGirlFromTheFuture Alice: The Girl from Earth]]'' (2002), and South-East Asia: Unity in Diversity (1989).
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22	Kir Bulychev died on 5 September, 2003 at the age of 68.
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25	!!Works:
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27	!!!Series
28	* Literature/AliceGirlFromTheFuture: Kir Bulychev's most famous cycle, about the adventures of a schoolgirl who lives 100 years in TheFuture and travels around the galaxy with her father, meeting many strange creatures. Several movies and games have been made, the most famous one being ''Series/GuestFromTheFuture''.
29	* Literature/GreatGusliar: MundaneFantastic events in a city that is visited by aliens.
30	* Literature/DoctorPavlysh: {{Space Opera}}s about an ActionSurvivor starship doctor.
31	* Literature/AndrewBruce: The adventures of an agent of the SpaceNavy, who uncovers conspiracies on alien planets. The Andrew Bruce adventures were written with more focus on moral dilemmas, and were based on the author's time in the Orient.
32	* Literature/IntergalacticPolice: A series about Kora Orvat, a SpacePolice agent who is a tougher SheIsAllGrownUp version of Literature/AliceGirlFromTheFuture. The Intergalactic Police would eventually CrossOver into the main "Alice, Girl from the Future" continuity.
33	* [[Literature/InstituteOfExpertise Institute of Expertise]]: A small series about an ExtranormalInstitute, whose heroes later appear in...
34	* [[Literature/TheaterOfShadows Theater of Shadows]]: A series of three books in which people visit and study an AlternateUniverse.
35	* Literature/RiverChronos: AlternateHistory Detective Drama novels in which the heroes use TimeTravel to change events. They save the Tsar from assassination, develop the atomic bomb ten years early, and resurrect Lenin.
36	* Literature/{{Veryovkin}}: SpeculativeFiction set in a CrapsackWorld city that is a sadder version of Literature/GreatGusliar.
37	* Literature/{{Ligon}}: Adventure series set in a FictionalCountry based on the author's experiences in [[UsefulNotes/ThatSouthEastAsianCountry Burma]].
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39	!!!Other books
40	* [[Literature/CraneInTheHands Crane in the Hands]]: A war in an AlternateUniverse begins to interfere with our world.
41	* [[Literature/AbductionOfTheSorcerer Abduction of the Sorcerer]]: [[TimeTravel Time travellers]] from TheFuture abduct geniuses to save them from death. A girl named Anna ends up as a spectator of one such operation.
42	* Literature/StrangeMemory: Professor Rzhevsky clones himself. The clone begins to investigate his purpose and the life of the professor.
43	* Literature/TheCityAbove: AfterTheEnd of a devastating war on a planet, archaeologists discover the survivors living in an ElaborateUndergroundBase that has become a brutal tyranny ruled by military and industrial oligarchs.
44	* [[Literature/DeathOnTheFloorBelow Death on the Floor Below]]: [[RippedFromTheHeadlines The Soviet government covers up an environmental disaster]]. Written as a critique of UsefulNotes/MikhailGorbachev around the time of the Soviet collapse.
45	* ''Literature/TheMysteryOfUrulgan'': A young English woman arrives in pre-UsefulNotes/RedOctober Siberia to search for a missing explorer and finds that a meteor is actually a crashed alien spaceship whose occupants are still frozen inside.
46	* Literature/APet: A few hundred years after an AlienInvasion by the LizardFolk placed the Earth under the alien yoke, humans are treated as animals, while LaResistance fights to liberate the conquered planet.
47	* Literature/{{Asylum}}: Intended to be the first book in a series that would have been a Russian response to Literature/HarryPotter. The boy Seva has to save the fairy-tale characters by finding them a place to live. But he DiedDuringProduction, prevented the series from taking off.
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49	!!!Stories
50	* ''Literature/ThisIsHowFloodsBegin''
51	* Literature/PeopleArePeople
52	* Literature/SummerMorning
53	* Literature/CoralCastle
54	* [[Literature/WhoNeedsIt Who Needs It?]]
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56	!!!Other works
57	* Literature/HalfALife: A ShortStory anthology.
58	* [[Literature/EarthAndElsewhere Earth and Elsewhere]]
59	* Literature/ThoseWhoSurvive -- in Doctor Pavlysh series, partially adapted as [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMqf81U8RoU animated]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_GLLY_PieCU film]]
60	* Literature/TheLastWar -- in Doctor Pavlysh series
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63	!!Tropes about Kir Bulychev or common to his works
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65	%%* CasualInterstellarTravel
66	* DiedDuringProduction: Died writing the series ''Asylum'', which would have been a Russian response to Literature/HarryPotter.
67	%%* TheFuture
68	%%* PenName
69	%%* RaygunGothic
70	%%* RedHeadedHero
71	%%* ScienceHero
72	%%* SeadogBeard
73	%%* StandardSciFiSetting
74	* TakeThat: Often uses his works to criticize racism, classism, greed, violence, and depravity.
75	%%* TimeTravel
76	%%* WriteWhoYouKnow

Context Creator / KirBulychev