Known for Acting
The story of an intelligent loser who lives in a communal apartment in St. Petersburg works as a “literary Negro” by Olga Buzova and writes an autobiography on her behalf.
A ten-year-old orphan gets adopted by a man pursued by the Mob. After surviving a hit man's attack, by a strange twist of circumstances the new foster father now has the would-be-killer's appearance, that of his son's biological dad.
Somewhere in the Urals, between the European and the Asian parts of Russia, there is a stele called "Europe-Asia". Professional swindlers have taken a liking to this place. For several days in a row a wedding is taking place by the roadside. They hide under the veil of the bride, in the costumes of the groom and witnesses, cynically taking in turn every traveler. Fraudsters "spin" the travelers for cash gifts to the newlyweds, generously feeding the guests with diluted alcohol. Under the guidance of the "mother of the bride" the group plays out incredibly funny criminal plays, and their spectators, accomplices and victims are PR people and political technologists, Chinese and Hungarians, policemen and bandits, beggar nomad children and, of course, foreign tourists nostalgic for the once abandoned Russia....
In the near future, writer Victor Banev gets himself on a UN commission to investigate what's going on in the remote town of Tashlinsk, where reports tell of a virus-created race of brainiac mutants. Banev's tween daughter Ira is enrolled at a school for gifted children which has been taken over by the mutants, who have grown to despise ordinary humanity.
They were once just ordinary people. He was a local police inspector, and she was a journalist writing about all things unusual. But ever since they became agents of a top-secret agency dealing with anomalous phenomena, their lives seemed to shift into another world. Their only connection to the normal world was through the Courier, while their assignments came from the Curator—who also received their reports. In the past, the Agency had many employees. Everyone felt the importance and uniqueness of the missions they carried out. But after a time of upheaval—when funding dried up and the future became uncertain—only four people remained from the original team. Yet neither the budget nor the headcount can influence the unknown forces that give rise to anomalies. These factors only determine the risk and burden placed on the agents who continue doing everything they can to keep anomalous phenomena from disrupting everyday life.
He is the genius of industrial espionage. She is a Chinese. She has nothing, she does not even have a name. They love each other madly, but they belong to the system. Go away from the system can only be to the madhouse, or to the grave.
A re-imagination of Japanese Emperor Hirohito’s final days in power as WWII draws to a close.
