"Pence against the schoolboy, or what happens if the old regime's old legacy is launched into the young new world".
The main point of reading literary prize nominees of various levels, even the most prestigious ones, is to find a really good book. When I hear that modern Russian literature stagnates, does not develop, local, peripheral, provincial - I want to ask, but judge by whom? If according to the winners of the golden troika: Natzbest, Big Book, Russian Booker, yes. The point is not even that the winners are not the best things, in fact, among them are very decent ones. The matter is different, in the premium round dance for two years spinning half a dozen works of someone once recognized as the best, and the rest would not exist in nature.
The conclusion is that the jury is partly incompetent, part of the maneuvers the duties. Or maybe (conspiracy theory) in such a way thin out the ranks of too diligent bourgeois writers, they say we have writers in abundance? I don't know if I'm going to judge a baby with water. And it's a real shame. The mass reader cannot get acquainted with a good book unless she has a decent lobby. The electronic letter is one of the literary awards that allows talented people who do not have support in the near-literary party to sound loud enough to be heard. I will not discover America, most of the works are very mediocre literary merits. But even one nugget is worth sifting tons of ore for it. Let's say I met my book among the current nominees about last year - "Cats are not always silent" by Garr. The second find, which is entirely my Sergei Volchok "In battle go alone".
Someone will see the book LitRPG, someone humorous fantasy. Both will be right. And they are wrong. In form, it is really the first, genre closest to the second. In fact, it is more interesting, more complicated and even more, it is infinitely charming. So, the near future, today's fifty years old under and over seventy, has not changed radically in the wonderful new world: an alternative source of energy has not been found, but the apocalypse has not happened either. The situation is the same as it is today, adjusted for the wind: the ecological and economic situation is worse, and a significant segment of the economy has moved into the sector of an alternative reality - a simulator, an analog of computer games with a perfect degree of immersion.
You don't ask how it works in practice, but you haven't figured it out on your own. The essence is that it works. The controlling stake belongs to the state, although private capital is widely attracted. Players who prefer the simulator of the basic reality, buy quite expensive accounts, getting the opportunity to live an alternative life in an unpolluted world. And as part of the social package, patients of nursing homes are also included in the participation, this is a state program, remember? And here begins the interesting thing.
Old people's accounts provide an opportunity to participate in the most modest game hypostasis and almost without starting capital. But they give the main thing - the happiness to feel healthy and full of strength again. Imagine living again, instead of dying slowly, falling into dementia. Such a fabulous opportunity is selective, there are serious limitations on health, and the capsules are not enough for everyone, but our hero is lucky. He's part of the four, where he's also a retired soldier and two old ladies whose hero christened Nikitichnaya and Mavrikievna for himself, he enters the game.
Further on, for me, it is more important about nothing but how. Although what I'm saying, of course, is the story, the conflict, the theme of the need to defend their own dignity, to be faithful to the ideals, even when in your position to have beliefs seems like a luxury that can not afford - of course, this is the main thing. But what a spectacle of my favorite memes it turns out to be, how do the dialogues of heroes integrate into the action and socio-cultural codes recognized by the representatives of my generation (and elders). In the story quotations from films, books and songs are decorated in the form of footnotes and at first, it is a little amusing, most irritating. You don't remember how often in recent times, in a conversation with readers, she threw a line from Ilf-Petrov, to which her peers will certainly react with a continuation, and in response with bewildered silence.
Sergei Volchok returns time not only to his heroes but also to his readers. She fell in love with all her heart for that.