Leopard from the Summit of Kilimanjaro

The Leningrad school of fantasy gave the genre many glorious names. Georgy Martynov, Ilya Varshavsky, Alexander Shalimov, Vadim Shefner… But one of them truly stands out, not because its owner is a woman. Olga Larionova suddenly shone brightly on the... fantastic horizon in the mid-sixties, instantly gaining a large circle of admirers. "Leopard from the Summit of Kilimanjaro" — it is about this novel that, according to online experts, "not only is considered one of the best books by Larionova, but it can be confidently included in the treasury of world fantasy. If the writer were American, she would certainly have won the 'Hugo' or 'Nebula' awards (or perhaps even both)." She was not published often, but almost every one of her works released during those sparse times for fantasy (the sixties to the eighties) hit the mark — that is, the hearts of readers. And “The Watch of Aramis,” which outwardly appeared to be an action story — space smugglers and all that — but how much novelty, freshness, vivid images, and complex, fierce situations were there in the tale. And the cycle “Sonatas,” inspired by the amazing paintings of Churlyonis. And “Chakra of the Centaur,” initially conceived as a joke but turning into a full-fledged “space opera” — a kind of worthy answer from us to the “Star King” Hamilton. Ivan Efremov was right, discerning the golden grain of talent in the then-young writer and wishing in the preface to her first book for her to "join the circle of those writers who follow the difficult path of searching for representations of the bright future of our planet."