Sergey Lukyanenko (born April 11, 1968, Karatau, Kazakhstan, U.S.S.R. [now in Kazakhstan]) is a Russian author of science fiction and fantasy, best known for his six-volume Night Watch series, a seminal body of work in the genre of urban fantasy.
Lukyanenko was the son of a Russian Ukrainian father and a Tatar mother. He completed his secondary education in the town of Dzhambul, Kazakhstan, and continued his studies (1986–92) at the Alma-Ata State Medical Institute (now Kazakh National Medical University), where he graduated with a degree in psychotherapy. Though trained as a child psychiatrist, he soon abandoned the medical profession to pursue a career as a writer. Influenced by Russian authors such as Vladislav Krapivin and the brothers Arkady and Boris Strugatsky as well as American counterparts Robert A. Heinlein and Stephen King, Lukyanenko began writing in the mid-1980s. He garnered a fan base as well as critical attention with his early collections, including Lord s planety Zemlya (1992; “A Lord from the Planet Earth”), Ostrov Rus (1993–94; “Island of Russia”), coauthored with Julius Burkin, and the immensely popular Labirint otrazheny (1996–2000; “Labyrinth of Reflections”), which evolved into a cult classic in Russia and earned Lukyanenko near-legendary status as a writer.
Lukyanenko solidified his reputation with the publication of the Night Watch series, which offered a futuristic vision of life in post-Soviet Moscow: “bleak and cold and made grim by economic malaise, a calcified political system, and the massive corruption unleashed by the fall of the Soviet Union and subsequent ‘liberalization.’ ” The initial volume, Nochnoy dozor (1998; Night Watch), transformed him into a literary celebrity, and the 2004 screen adaptation, directed by Timur Bekmambetov, set a box-office record at the time as the highest-grossing film in Russian cinematic history. Lukyanenko’s follow-up, Dnevnoy dozor (2000; Day Watch), coauthored with Vladimir Vasilyev, was adapted by Bekmambetov in 2006. The other books in the series include Sumerechny dozor (2004; Twilight Watch), Posledny dozor (2006; Last Watch), Novy dozor (2012; New Watch), and Shestoy dozor (2015; Sixth Watch).
Lukyanenko was the recipient of numerous literary prizes in Russia; in 1999 he became the youngest writer to win the prestigious Aelita Award for his contribution to science fiction. He likened literature to a “fantasy of ideas” and simplified his affinity for his craft as a sense of wonderment: “What draws me to science fiction is mystery. What would happen if Earth were visited by aliens—kind and good sort of aliens—that put up Star Gates all over the planet, so that we could travel anywhere we wished?”