Nik Perumov was born 1963 in Leningrad, today St. Petersburg. He began writing short stories when he was a teenager. After studying at the Leningrad Polytechnical Institute, Perumov worked at a research institute. A fantasy fan he translated Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings In the early 1980s which was the start to a Tolkien-mania in Russia. In the early 1990ies he published his own first fantasy series Ring of Darkness which provoked a controversy in the Tolkien fandom. But since this successful debut all of Perumov’s books together have sold more than 12 Mio copies. During Russian financial crisis in 1998 Perumov emigrated to the United States of America where he works as biophysician at a university medical centre. His job does not keep him from continously writing new sci-fi and fantasy series.