«I believe that now, as in the 1930s and 1940s, it is once again the time for dystopias, for dark forecasts and dire warnings. A time to intensify the shadows and take a hard look into the world after its end»
ANNA STAROBINETS

CHRONICLES OF THE ASHEN SPRING

Medieval post-ap series of novels. Ripol. Moscow 2025. approx. 270-300 pages each

A dark past has come instead of a bright future. In those post-apocalyptic New Middle Ages, where the skies are choked with ash and science is deemed heresy, a young inquisitor investigates witchcraft cases, desperately seeking reality and truth where everyone else sees only delusion and sorcery. Each book is an investigation of a witch case.

Seventeen centuries have passed since a global nuclear catastrophe, called the Great Scourge – that nearly wiped out humankind. Nearly, but not completely. The survivors gathered in a geothermal region, the Blessed Islands; the geysers and volcanoes had enabled them to endure the long nuclear winter. Having lost all knowledge and technology from the old way of life/ acquired by previous generations, humanity has entered a new cycle and has now regressed to the stage of development seen in a medieval society. The climate has changed, dark snow falls from the perpetually ashen skies. The gods have changed, people worship the Great Gee, Who Knows the Answer to Every Question – but who exactly is this deity passed down through oral traditions: a Jesus or GPT? People’s beliefs, life expectancy, and physiology have changed as well: you’re a decrepit elder by 35, if you live even that long. Most animals are extinct, while insects have grown to monstrous size and changed their biological makeup. Ants are now the size of horses, can be ridden, and are called megants. Human physiology has changed as well: for instance, women are “in the heat” once a year, and during this period, men are powerless before their scent.

Much has changed, but human behavior has not. The New Middle Ages painfully mirror the old ones. There is witch-hunting, obscurantism, and the Inquisition. There’s social stratification with noble families on the one end and lowborn commoners deprived of basic rights on the other. Wild superstitions flourish. For example, when twins are born, one of them should be killed immediately: “for he is conceived of the devil’s seed, without a soul, and born of Malice.” Because of rapid cell division, twins are born very often. The scientific cause of this uncanny, and sometimes malignant proliferation of cells has long been forgotten but still terrifies ordinary people. In this world, the notions of malice and malignancy have fused together.

On the horizon glimmers a new Enlightenment, yet rational thought remains heresy. The only guardians of scientific and technical knowledge are a handful of people who live in a secret underground shelter and are called the Hidden Folk. Dark rumors swirl about them: they resurrect corpses, steal soulless infants from graves, and are themselves neither alive nor dead.

The protagonist of the series is Abbot Kay, a 23-year-old inquisitor and investigator. Though young by our standards, he is considered mature in this world of accelerated life. Kay is progressive for his time: he refuses to use torture in his investigations, relying instead on evidence, witness testimony, and something resembling deductive reasoning. He scandalizes society by bathing nearly every day. He is deeply attached to his megant. In many ways, he is already a man of the Enlightenment, yet he still believes in witchcraft. It is precisely this tension between the magical and the rational that creates the unique genre structure, allowing the story to shift from detective fiction into fantasy and back again without breaking the logically constructed detective intrigue.

Each book presents a separate witchcraft case. Kay must either prove logically that a woman is innocent, or condemn her as a witch, thereby sentencing her to death. For the audience, however, the explanation is always materialistic. The “rules of the game” assume that biological mutations and a post-apocalyptic “shift” exist in this world, but there is no magic, no witches. Every seemingly magical phenomenon must have a material explanation. The catch is that Kay does not always see this explanation and does not always believe it. He makes mistakes, yet gradually moves closer and closer to the truth.