NARR* interview the Russian fantasy author Vadim Panov

1. Panov’s The Secret City Reimagined for NARR8 Platform
The Secret City will make a début as one of NARR8’s series on January 25 th. The
episodes are based on the works of bestselling Russian fantasy writer Vadim Panov. In
this interview, he shares his thoughts on how the interactive graphic novel format may
breath new life into his novels.
Were you familiar with the NARR8 platform and content before you were offered to launch
Secret City as a series?
Yes, and I instantly liked this new approach. In terms of graphic novels, I don’t find classic
ones interesting because the ‘graphic’ part overrides the ‘novel’, and I’m a person who fancies
text more than art. The art itself is fine, but it’s not something I myself can relate to. But when
there’s a good balance between art and text, now there’s something to talk about which
NARR8 accomplishes. I believe this is one of the modern paths of development for literature
as a genre. It’s not entirely clear as to where this may lead in the future, but it’s certainly
intriguing. I like experimenting, and participating in daring new ventures so when NARR8
approached me, I was all for it.
In our version of Secret City, several alterations were made to the original plot. For instance,
your ‘secret city’ is Moscow, and we changed it to New York. What is your feeling towards
these changes?
We came to an agreement about this in the very beginning. I understand that someone might
be displeased with this change as Secret City is dear to the readers because the city of
Moscow itself is dear to them and they like that the story takes place in familiar surroundings.
But let’s face it: during the last couple of decades, almost every TV show, movie, musical and
so on are modeled after American original series. They buy a license and then create a
‘Russianized’ version, while we, in this case, are doing the opposite: we take something
originally Russian and localize it for the Americans. That’s what I especially like about the
whole idea. It makes me proud, you know?
Do you think the American and European readers will see the Secret City story differently than
the Russian audience?
I don’t think there’s anything specific about the original that might be hard for the Western
readers to understand. Fantasy as a genre is based on things that are universal in our
cultures. For instance we all expect a 16-century magician to live in the middle of a wild forest,
and a 19-century magician to live in the forest near a city, because people gradually moved to
the cities, and their reality shifted. Well, now we all live in cities, so a modern-day magician is
bound to live among us. But it’s all part of the same mythmaking tradition. There’s a different
trend now within the urban fantasy genre with its vampire stories. Take the Twilight saga or
Lukyanenko’s Watches; they are influenced by secret societies, as with other mediums like the
Masons, conspiracies of world leaders. These are stories that occupy our minds nowadays. So
if you write about someone scheming to rule the world, about wars between some mysterious
powerful groups, it all feels very ‘natural’ to the readers, because these are the things that you
subconsciously suspect are true about the world, like our ancestors subconsciously believed in
fairy-tales. As for the Secret City, however, things are a bit different: it’s a story about a group
that doesn’t really care all that much about people. I mean, there are reasons why they can’t

2. destroy us, but if people were to disappear from the planet as a race, the inhabitants of the
Secret City would probably just breathe a sigh of relief.
Who would you say is the target audience of your books? And do you think the image of your
average reader might change after Secret City’s appearance on NARR8 considering that even
schoolchildren nowadays own iPads?
When I was a beginning author, I was under the impression that my readers were mostly
young people: teenagers, students, maybe some college graduates. But then I discovered that
wasn’t true. If your book is worthwhile, it’s beyond age. iPads and other tablets are owned by
people of all ages, not just teenagers. Many adults use them, not necessarily for entertainment
purposes. For instance, a tablet may prove very useful when you’re traveling. Still, if you own
one, you’re likely to become interested in all the options it has to offer. So I think all sorts of
people might be interested in NARR8. It’s something new; people enjoy exploring new things.
And from then on, it all depends on the quality of your stories. If they’re good, then the
audience will stick with you.
Do you think that fantasy and sci-fi writers might be interested in creating stories exclusively
for NARR8? Next year it’s going to become possible for any content creator.
That really depends on what writers you are talking about. We’re not all the same, you know.
Some people, even some young people, were brought up on classic books. The very concept
of storytelling and plot development there is very different from what NARR8 requires from its
authors. And those people might not be able to adapt to the new format. Your narrative
methods will feel foreign to them, the way you split the story into episodes and the way you
present the story itself. I’ve worked with some people who write screenplays for major movies
—they are very different from literature writers. They handle the plot in a much more sharp,
precise, urgent kind of way, so that the film director will instantly understand what they mean.
It’s also important to realize that NARR8 is a whole new genre that has yet to be developed. Its
rules aren’t yet set in stone. So who knows, maybe eventually there will be a way even for old
school writers to create series for the platform without altering their perception of text too
much.
Do you think we perceive information differently from our ancestors? Does the 20-30 minute
episode format somehow reflect the way we understand stories?
Of course. The pace of modern life is nothing like the pace of the 18 th or the 19th century. When
classic literature emerged, things were very relaxed. For instance, take Radishchev’s Journey
from St. Petersburg to Moscow. The whole book is about a month-long trip. And the book itself
was something you could read while embarking on a similar journey. Because, you know, you
needed a way of killing the time. Eventually the rhythm of things got faster, especially as cities
developed. In this sense, it is only logical that the pace of modern storytelling is different from
how stories were told two centuries ago, and our perception of these stories is different too.