This is the first volume of the future trilogy, the English title of the book is 鈥楽teppe鈥檚 God鈥�. This is a novel of Ukrainian writer . Before reading the book I became aware of him as one of the co-authors of the great Ukrainian Youtube channel , which makes great short videos on Ukrainian linguistics, literature, folklore and other themes.
The preface of the book defines it as fantasy. The start, with a 14 year old protagonist Serhiy hints on YA. However, both these assumptions are wrong, and the novel, while having supernatural elements is actually build up own mythology, which can be linked to Lovecraftian mythos, up to the fact that the novel addresses other works of the author, but is a roundabout way. For example, one of the characters says 鈥榰nderground rivers flow鈥� and this is actually the title of his anthology 鈥� . Or there is an earlier short story added to this book, with a plot, which is mentioned but not elaborated in the novel. Because this is my first book of the author, I may have missed other links鈥�
So, Serhiy is an ordinary guy from a little town in Ukrainian steppe. The town鈥檚 name is given as Zapropady (which can be roughly translated 鈥榖ehind nothing鈥�), which is actually the author鈥檚 home town . The date is 2007 and he takes part in local subculture musical movements. The selection of activities in the town is quite poor, so he wants to get to a concert, which is a big thing for locals, but instead parents take him outside the town to meet a strange man, who tries to heal Serhiy鈥檚 aunt. The man, Victor actively dabbles in using herbs and mushrooms as well as 鈥榚nergy sources鈥� to heal people, but he is a physicist (and took part in liquidation of Chornobyl catastrophe) and a reasonable man, who at the same time may tell that his father was a werewolf. Victor tells Serhiy about two great powers, roughly equivalent to chaos and order (but not good/evil), which push the world out of its equilibrium. Chaos-like is Khassara, which tries to return the universe to the state before it existed, while order are Aterians, who want all black-and-white, without anything in between.
What follows is just a year or so from Serhiy鈥檚 life, where his ordinary life with school, first love, subculture gatherings is interrupted from time to time with (possibly) mystical events.
It is great that there are authors who try to create own mythology, borrowing both from local specifics and world鈥檚 classic gothic and horror literature. The prose flows easily and the book can be gulped in a few days. However, I guess many fans of more usual fantasy or YA will be dissatisfied, for it is notably outside the usual tropes.