Evgeny Proshkin: biography, creativity and awards

Cyberpunk is one of the subgenres of science fiction, demonstrating changes in human culture due to the development of scientific and technological progress. The name of this trend is formed from two English words: cybernetics ("cybernetics") and punk ("punk"). The cyberpunk genre can be considered in many ways similar to dystopia.

Works written in the cyberpunk genre differ from classical science fiction novels in that in the latter, the action usually takes place in the distant future. In cyberpunk, the plot unfolds in the near future and is built around some kind of conflict: it can be a confrontation between hackers, humans and artificial intelligence, mega-corporations.

The prominent representatives of this trend in literature include William Gibson, John Shirley, Rudy Rücker, Alexander Tyurin and others. One of the authors who worked in the cyberpunk genre is also Russian science fiction writer Evgeny Proshkin.

Biography

The future author was born in Moscow on May 28, 1970. After school, Evgeni Aleksandrovich Proshkin entered the Russian State Geological Exploration University, but did not graduate, leaving him in his last year. Then he studied for 3 years at the Gorky Literary Institute, where he also did not receive a diploma.

After returning from the army, Evgeny Proshkin tested himself in many different professions, starting with a worker in a sausage factory and ending with a bank employee.

The writer's literary debut took place when he was 21 years old, in 1991: in the magazine “The Fourth Dimension” the first story of Evgeny Proshkin was published under the title “Spare Option”. However, it cannot be said that immediately after this author success was expected - his first independent book, War of the Dead, was published only after almost 10 years, in 2000.

In the future, new works of Eugene Proshkin came out several times a year. At present, the author owns 15 novels and 14 short stories.

Bibliography. Novels

The most famous novel by Evgeny Proshkin “The War of the Dead” was published in 2000 by Eksmo-Press and entered the series “Russian Fiction”.

The protagonist is 16-year-old Tikhon. It is difficult for a teenager to look for a common language with peers, he feels unnecessary in the company of people, so he prefers to spend time at the computer playing video games. Once he receives an offer to take part in an interplanetary war and control a huge armed tank, which Tikhon immediately agrees to. However, not everything is so simple, and it soon turns out that this game is not entirely safe.

Another popular book by Yevgeny Proshkin “In God Mode” was published relatively recently - in 2016. This cyberpunk novel tells the story of Viktor Sigalov, who lives in an era of interactive dreams called morphoscripts. Sigalov wants to create a morphoscript that can replace the real world, but circumstances make him realize that some dreams should not be realized.

The stories

One of Proshkin’s most popular stories is “Twenty Minutes from the Life of Anton Sobolev.” The abstract tells the story of the protagonist Anton Sobolev, whose life is radically changing in one seemingly unremarkable summer day. Hearing the doorbell, Sobolev opens it and realizes that the elderly person standing on the threshold is himself.

The plot of the story “Catharsis of Corporal Tarasov” is focused on the young corporal Konstantin, who received 5 days of arrest for an unsuccessful joke about the execution of Colonel Losev. However, a strange coincidence soon occurs, and the aforementioned colonel really almost dies from a bullet.

Evgeny Proshkin’s story “On Round” came out 2 years after the debut “Reserve Option” and was published in the journal “Chemistry and Life”. Alexey’s wife is about to give birth, and they go to the hospital. An accident happens on the road due to the fact that Alexey is not managing. Having come to his senses after what happened, he discovers that he cannot move, and instead of words he utters only crying.

Prizes and awards

For his work, Evgeny Proshkin was awarded two awards. In 2003, at the literary-practical conference "Bastcon" he became a laureate of the award "Sword of the Bastion." Two years later, Proshkin was awarded another prize "Moonlight Rainbow" for the novel "Fighter" Homeland ".

In addition, the writer has also been nominated several times for other prizes.