Art imitates life. Or maybe life imitates art? It certainly seems that way in author Yaroslav Barsukov’s Big Idea for his newest novel, Sleeping Worlds Have No Memory. Come along and see for yourself the parallels drawn between our two worlds.
YAROSLAV BARSUKOV:
When I was writing the Big Idea essay for my Nebula-nominated novella Tower of Mud and Straw, I had no clue I had a prophetic book on my hands. Tower, a work of science fantasy, had been outlined in December 2019 and written in the period from January to May 2020, a year before the first Russian military buildup near Ukraine’s borders and two years before the war started.
There’s a version of Russia in both the novella and my new novel Sleeping Worlds Have No Memory, which is inspired by it (and no, you don’t need to have read the novella—an extended Director’s Cut of it forms the novel’s first half). More specifically, the kingdom of Duma is based on the 19th-century Russian Empire, with a dash of Austro-Hungary thrown in for good measure.
Everybody is expecting an invasion, and that’s why they’re building this mammoth tower—as a deterrent. People talk at length about how there have always been rumors of Duma attacking, even when they were kids. There’s even a burned-down village by the name of Poltava (a victim of a recent border dispute) the heroes visit at one point; the real Poltava is a city and a region in Ukraine that came within an inch of being invaded by Putin’s forces. Kirkus, who did a starred review of the novella (they also gave Sleeping Worlds a starred review a couple of weeks back!), thought these were Cold War vibes. Hell, I thought so too! We were so wrong …
After Tower of Mud and Straw had made the Nebula shortlist, there was an immediate interest from Russia’s largest traditional publisher, Eksmo. The translation came out in February 2022, just a month before the war, and some of the Russian bloggers couldn’t even read it. “I switch on the TV, news comes on, I turn it off and pick up a fantasy book instead—and it’s the exact same stuff!”
I’ve always been shy about saying I’d predicted the war. I used to say the novella had anticipated it—until a reviewer of Sleeping Worlds pointed me to something one of the character says.
“Consider this: if the tower doesn’t get finished within the next two years, Duma will attempt an incursion.”..
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Source: The Big Idea: Yaroslav Barsukov
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