Abstract
The article considers the new generation of speculative fiction writers in Russia, who started publishing in the late 2000s and early 2010s. Central among them is a loosely connected group of authors known collectively as the Color Wave. Their primary focus is on “inner space” and emotional processes, while they usually avoid social aspects and problems of the real world. The article describes the genesis and conceptual framework of the Color Wave, listing the most prominent authors and works associated with the movement. Other significant authors of the same generation are discussed as well.
Notes
1. Available at http://odrozd.narod.ru/valentinov/stati/dzv.html.
2. D. Volodikhin, “Predchuvstvie Shestoi volny: Tsvetnoi den’,” Znamia, 2009, no. 3.
3. Novels in speculative fiction have been shortlisted before, and they have even won general literary prizes (e.g., the novels 2017 by Olga Slavnikova and The Librarian [Bibliotekar’] by Mikhail Elizarov won the Russian Booker), but it is an exceptional case to shortlist writers who specialize in speculative fiction.
4. S. Nekrasov, “Serzhantu nikto ne zvonit,” Esli, 2006, no. 12.
5. The work was coauthored with Aleksandr Shakilov.
6. The publication date was 2012; the story was written in 1991.
7. Available at www.fantlab.ru/work616431/.
8. Similarly, Aleksandr Kushner playfully recombines lines from other poets in his poem “Contemporaries” [Sovremenniki], in which he takes lines from Kornei Chukovskii's “Crocodile” [Krokodil] and Alexander Blok's “The Twelve” [Dvenadtsat’].
9. The story was written in 2002.
10. D. Volodikhin, “Chetvertaia volna: anatomiia tvorchestva,” in Chetvertaia volna otechestvennoi fantastiki (Moscow, 2004).
11. V. Pokrovskii, “Tikhii plesk ‘chetvertoi volny’,” in Chetvertaia volna otechestvennoi fantastiki (Moscow, 2004).
12. A. Lazarchuk “Ot sostavitelia,” in Predchuvstvie “shestoi volny” (St. Petersburg, 2007).
13. Pokrovskii, “Tikhii plesk ‘chetvertoi volny’.”
14. The two waves are similar in the fact that at the end of the 1990s authors from the Fourth Wave also took part in a jointly authored project—a novelization of the series The X-Files (Sekretnye materialy).
15. A. Roife, “Predchuvstvie ‘shestoi volny’,” Esli, 2008, no. 1.
16. O. Divov, “Okonchatel'nyi diagnoz, ili Soboleznovaniia patologoanatoma,” Esli, 2007, no. 3.