Novels

Glass can neither be shaped nor destroyed. It cannot even be touched, for any contact with Glass turns all living things into Glass. Yet Glass has a source—a mysterious place in the north from which it slowly spreads, engulfing ever larger territories.

Thirteen people—failures, outcasts, criminals, and adventurers—set out toward the source across a frozen wasteland, each carrying their own burden, their own story. As their paths intersect, these stories intertwine into a strange and intricate web, spanning dozens of lives, cities, generations, and eras. At the head of the expedition stands the enigmatic Guide—perhaps a Messiah, perhaps a cunning impostor, or perhaps both at once.

On 29 May 1953, the New Zealander Edmund Hillary and the Sherpa Tenzing Norgay became the first to reach the summit of the world’s highest mountain—Everest. But… were they truly the first? The central thread of the novel explores the events leading up to George Mallory’s legendary 1924 expedition: his love affairs and scientific work, his many journeys, and his experience in the First World War. Everest offers an unexpected, provocative reinterpretation of Everest exploration history and at the same time a literary game.

No, the Messiah did not descend from the heavens in white robes, surrounded by angels and bathed in glory. He arrived in Rome by hitching a random ride, wearing dirty, worn-out boots, and missing several teeth. He stole, killed, and committed adultery—but none of that mattered, because he was proclaimed the new Christ live on every television channel in the world. And humanity received exactly what it deserved.

The great racing driver Red Byron and the beautiful Sutherland sisters; a Nazi war criminal on the run and a deafblind girl; the first US embassy in Moscow and the military actions in Nanjing, China; small-town gangsters of the 1930s and the extraordinary locomotive of engineer Holman. At first glance, the characters and realities of this book have nothing in common: some are fictional, others existed in real life; reality blends with imagination, the eighteenth century gradually flows into the twenty-first… The remarkable stories and gripping plots, the living legends woven together across the pages of the novel, span a vast stretch of time, and the only thing that unites them is that all of them could have happened. Or—let there remain the slightest possibility—they actually did.

The Second World War, Harbin, the infamous Unit 731, where people are infected with plague and gas gangrene, dehydrated and frozen. Present-day prosperous Moscow. A high-tech space station of the twenty-seventh century. Different times, people, and destinies—yet the questions remain the same. Can murder be justified by a higher purpose? Murder for the sake of a scientific breakthrough? Murder for the good of society? Murder… out of mercy? This is not a philosophical treatise—it is a work of fiction. This is not realism—it is science fiction of the highest order. Is the world ruled by hatred—or is it, after all, ruled by love?

Paris, the seventeenth century, the age of Louis the Great. A young bookbinder, Charles de Grezy, crafts bindings from human skin, earns a good living, and knows no troubles—until he encounters a woman whose skin could become the material for a masterpiece, if only he did not fall in love with her while she is still alive… The most astonishing book of the twenty-first century was, in its first edition, bound in genuine leather, with a tiny “autograph” embedded in its cover—a sample of Eric Delahaye’s own skin. Taking the story beyond the pages of the book is a striking device, yet the novel became a bestseller above all thanks to its brilliant execution: a superbly told story, elegant prose, and vivid characters. Leading international publications have compared "The Bookbinder" to "Perfume: The Story of a Murderer" and "The Anatomist"—and not without reason.

The characters of "Ode" live in a world without death, yet it is filled with suffering, murder, and torture. Behind this chaos lies a central question: how would humanity behave if it attained immortality? Only those possessing inhuman strength and cruelty can survive here. "Ode" tells the story of the berserker Rigger, who is losing his immortality. Will he be able to survive in a brutal world where everyone but him is invulnerable?

In addition to the novel "Ode to Absolute Cruelty," the book also includes short stories by finalists of the “Facultet” literary competition.