From his very appearance in literature, the writer Boris Akunin (in real life, the Japaneseist, translator and literary critic Grigory Chkhartishvili) calculates with amazing accuracy the distance by which he needs to get ahead of time so that, on the one hand, his equality is undeniable, and on the other hand, so as not to fall into the category of unrecognized geniuses who have run ahead too far.
Akunin wrote his first novels about Erast Fandorin, the most popular mass fiction was primitive gangster detectives. It seemed that against this rough background, Akunin’s refined stylization with finely written characters and complex intrigue was doomed to failure. But no — Chkhartishvili caught the growing need in society for books that are fascinating, but at the same time of high quality, well thought out and written. It is this ability to understand and sincerely respect the reader, and most importantly, to be a little ahead of and anticipate his desires, that made Boris Akunin perhaps the most widely read author in Russia.
His new book Quest, which formally continues the Genres project (Fantastic Novel, Spy Novel and Children’s Book appeared in this series a few years ago), is likely to again become a breakthrough into the future. «Quest» gamers call a certain type of computer game, the action in which, like in the novel, develops linearly, from beginning to end, and the tasks that the player has to face gradually become more difficult. The title itself hints at the fact that this is not just a book. Indeed, a long-time lover and connoisseur of computer games, Grigory Chkhartishvili combines literature and virtual reality. «Quest» can be bought in the store as a regular book, or you can go to the website and in a fair fight with the computer to win the right to read the novel for free. According to Akunin, all sorts of «tricks» — games, tests, thematic excursions — with which he accompanied the electronic part of the project, will help to dive deeper into the world of the Soviet Union he recreated in the early 30s, in the full sense of the word, breathing in the air of the past. As before, the writer again goes half a step ahead of the reader’s expectations — and does not doubt for a second that numerous followers will immediately rush along the path he has laid.