Roman Zlotnikov, Anton Kornilov

Born nobleman. Dawn

Moscow. Two years before the events described

There was no time to wait for the elevator. The head of the Department, Albert Kazachok, flew up the stairs to the fifth floor. As he passed the last flight, he noted with satisfaction that he was not too out of breath, and his legs were not in the least heavy; on the contrary, from this short run, the dispersed blood boiled more cheerfully in the whole body.

Albert Kazachok headed the Office just a month ago, becoming the youngest head of the above department in its history. And with the advent of Albert, the atmosphere of a certain turning freshness was somehow born and strengthened in the Office - as, however, almost always happens with any change of power.

With a quick step, managing to respond to the greetings of colleagues, Albert reached the reception of his own office. There were two guys waiting for him in the waiting room, in their early twenties. Guys - one bright blond, thin; the second darker and more massive - with the same agile readiness they jumped up to meet him.

The Cossack, slowing down a little, nodded to the guys, abruptly threw:

- From the HR department? For an internship? - And, without waiting for the answer, which he already knew, he turned to the secretary, a heavy grey-whiskered major (the Office never had an idiotic tradition of putting brainless girls in the secretarial chair, who considered the ability to type with one finger, respond to phone calls and prepare coffee to be the pinnacle of professional skill ). “Take it, Nikolaitch, what do you have there…”

The grey-whiskered major entered the office after Albert, handed him a folder:

“Here is today, Comrade Colonel.

The Cossack, without sitting down, opened the folder on the table, scattered the papers like a fan of cards: some he immediately signed, returning them to the folder, some he put aside. And after that, exhaling, he sank into his chair. He rubbed his forehead:

- What time is the meeting?

The Major glanced at his watch.

“In thirteen minutes, Comrade Colonel. Would you like to transfer?

“I’ll make it in time…” Albert answered with some, however, doubt, waking up the computer monitor with a mouse click. At that moment, his cell phone rang.

- Do you invite young people? the secretary asked quickly.

Albert, taking out the phone with one hand, waved to the major with the other: they say, wait, then ... He immediately left the office.

- Hello, brother! – cheerfully rattled the speaker of the mobile. - How does she, Monomakhov's hat, not press?

“Come on, Arthur, okay? - Kazachok asked, frowning with displeasure. - Busy, no time to breathe ... What do you have?

- Completely conceited! - they chuckled into the phone. - You can’t say a good word to your brother, bloody!

“Shit up,” Albert corrected, “but not arrogant. Do you have something very urgent? If not very much, it is better through Nikolaich ...

“By the way, I’m calling you on a personal phone, and not on a business one,” said Arthur, Kazachok Jr. - Through Nikolaich! .. Why hasn't he settled in the apartment with you yet? Here Galka will be delighted. Soon you will ask to transfer the salt through your Nikolaich ...

“I’m hanging up,” Albert warned.

- Okay, okay ... Have they come in yet?

So they didn't come...

It was only then that Albert realized that we are talking about two new trainees sent to him from the personnel department. And immediately chimed in:

“Wait, what do you care about them?” They are not assigned to your department. They serve and serve before operational work ...

He was still finishing the last sentence, when an annoying thought swirled in his head: he did not have time to look at the personal files of the interns. Here they are, on the table, something. As he ordered yesterday ... I expected to view it early in the morning, but it didn’t work out. Just got to the office.

Well, he won't get used to it. new head Management Albert Kazachok, to this crazy schedule ... And how did the old man Magnum manage to do everything? And I've never been in a hurry recent years ten of his cabinet - this very one, which Albert now inherited along with the position - almost never left. Nevertheless, he managed to keep abreast of all the affairs of the Office, be the first to know any news, and make timely decisions every time.

It’s a pity for Magnum, of course… For almost forty years he headed the Department, for forty years he was the head of the department, vigilantly standing guard over the Fatherland. And until recently, it would never have occurred to anyone that someday it would be somehow different. However… A heart attack, resuscitation, dreary news miraculously leaked from a closed hospital… And only then did the Authority suddenly realize that the Magnum, the powerful monolith of the Magnum that caused constant awe, the impenetrable block of the Magnum – ordinary person, obeying, like everyone else, the laws of nature, an eighty-three-year-old old man with a tired heart worn out by time ...

However, he remained true to himself to the last - without hurrying anywhere, he was not late; everything you need is provided. A week before his death, he left a secret order: who after him will take over the helm of the Administration, and how exactly the heir should shuffle the other commanding staff ...

– Albert! Hey brother! You fell asleep there, didn't you? Overtired?

- Yes! Albert snapped. - I'm listening! So what's the problem with interns?

- With one of them. And not problems, but ... quite the contrary.

- That is?

- That is it. What, you didn't look at their personal files? Come on, boss...

“Time is running out,” muttered Albert Kazachok. - Don't pull.

“One of the trainees is from Saratov,” Arthur said.

- Former orphanage.

- And what does it mean?

- Orphanage - that means he was brought up in an orphanage. In the same orphanage.

- In what else - the same one? .. - Kazachok Sr., brought out of patience, almost barked, but in time he remembered: - What are you talking about? .. - he drawled. - Truth?..

"Yeah," Arthur chuckled, clearly satisfied with the effect. - Well, bye, brother. See you today. Then share your impressions of the meeting. I haven't met him personally yet.

- Very cool?

- Yes, where is it! Just the first step of the Pillar...

Albert put down the phone. Automatically glanced at his watch, then shifted his gaze to two plastic folders lying on the table to the left, where documents that needed urgent review were usually located. He reached over the folders... and didn't open any.

An unexpected thought came to him.

“Look…” he said thoughtfully. - How much we chased after you, and here it is - one such one himself showed up. Tregrey's nest chick. And, it seems, one of the first ... Well, judging by age ...

He took a service pistol out of his chest holster, removed it from the safety catch, put it on his knees and, moving closer to the table, jabbed his finger at the selector button, ordered in a low voice:

- Nikolaich, invite them. Both at once.

They entered one by one: first the blond one, then the dark one.

Albert Kazachok pulled out a pistol from under the table, pulling the bolt with lightning speed.

The dark-haired guy did not even have time to be scared. It is unlikely that he understood anything at all. He tumbled off the line of sight - from a strong push from the blond. The blond himself simply disappeared. Dissolved in the air. But not completely, but as if turning into a blurry gray shadow, instantly darting in the opposite direction from the dark-haired one.

The senior Kazachok almost instinctively jerked his head away, fleeing from something sparkling, furiously rotating flying into his face ... which made him lose his orientation in space for a second. And at the same moment a gray shadow, swirling from somewhere on the side and behind, fell on him, crushed and twisted his body.

Albert woke up under the table. There was no gun in hand. My right hand was very sore, my fingers were aching. And my chest burned as if it had been flattened with a stick.

“He kissed the edge of the table…” he guessed.

Grimacing in pain, he rose to his feet. The dark-haired guy was nowhere to be seen, and the blond one was standing half-turned a little further away, by the wall stand next to the door. He was just hoisting a large goblet, gleaming with fake gold, onto the stand. The butt of Albert's pistol protruded from his trouser pocket.

“He wrinkled a little,” the guy said, apparently feeling the look of the Cossack Sr. on himself. - It's against the wall. Excuse me.

“If you hadn’t missed, my head would have crumpled,” Albert replied.

“But I didn’t miss,” the guy said simply. - I missed aiming. The throw was intended to be distracting, not striking. “Cossack Albert Vasilyevich…” he began to read the inscription on the goblet, “for the victory in regional hand-to-hand competitions…”

“It was five years ago,” interrupted Albert. - Since then, I have already managed to take the championship in the country ... Return the weapon.

The white-haired man unquestioningly gave him the pistol - he held it out with the handle forward, as it should be.

First of all, this book has nothing to do with the Knights of the Threshold. I admit that it is possible to attach this beginning of a new cycle to the old untwisted one, but it will look like a tea mug taped to the monitor with tape. Strange, stupid, incomprehensible, and most importantly, “why”? It seems to me that there is just some kind of mistake related to the fact that this is the same pair of authors.

Now about the work itself. A very obscure thing. In terms of the confusion of the plot and ideas, it can successfully compete with the extremely weak "Elite of the Elites".

In fact, the book is a mixture of modern rubbish with the author's ideas, which he tries to convey to the reader from book to book. Only if in previous works ideas could be called ill-conceived and very controversial, then here some kind of confusion happened.

Again, a semi-fascist militarized monarchical state as a bright dream, the hereditary elite - the "nobles", etc. etc. But those who have read the earlier books of Roman will be disappointed. Nothing new here, everything is the same. Only now some esotericism, superpowers and other dregs are being added.

It turns out that the author himself admits that his monarchical dreams in natural physical conditions are the same reality as "torsion fields" and "Petrik-Gryzlov's self-cleaning filter." By the way, and in the course of the plot, he brings the reader to this thought. Having dipped the heroes into a black environment, at first the author drives the reader into thinking that the black hat is the fruit of the inaction of the townsfolk, their unwillingness to fight, and not at all their inability. Well, yes, sometimes it is. The idea is not the most stupid, although primitive. But by the end of the book, the author himself turns everything upside down, telling us that only a superhero with superpowers can help us. Those. only a miracle is worth hoping for.

So it turns out that ideologically the work is weak and does not have integrity, which makes it well, not at all interesting. Well, besides ideology, what is left in the book? Yes, the same as in any dark crime series on zombies. Is it necessary?

Score: 4

Never wrote a review... I'm 36 years old and a hardcore cynic and have been working for 15 years in a highly cynical field. I really liked the book. Not a plot... not literary genre or the style... not the idea as a whole... and not the happy ending at the end. The author really shows us how WE are all rotten weaklings inside, and this is worth a lot. Each of us in the mentura, in the hospital with broken toilets, in the ministry with bribes, in the Duma with lobbyists, in schools with extortions ... we all want happiness and prosperity for our children, parents, wives. But EVERYONE in his cell of the existing system is pissing to change something, to go against the system and say this very thing “I strongly forbid this!” Everyone invents fucking excuses for himself why he is weak... doctors say that they save children by working in "shit" and enduring "shit" around them, policemen say that they are unable to go against the system, teachers consider themselves heroes just because they teach.. . and so on. Each mini-world, invented and justified by himself, has his own mini-religion ... and it will be worthy to at least recognize this and try to comprehend and change something in yourself. The book CHANGES something inside the reader, and there are almost no such books left, therefore it is more valuable than many others, even if it contains a lot of logical errors and fantastic assumptions.

Rating: no

A superhero, even if not a wizard yet, but “I'm just learning”, against a super evil, even if it is a small-town one. (I even wanted to put the “Dark Lord” marker in the classifier))). Only now such a super evil does not happen in the regions. Well, oh well, superheroes also don’t get to us for some reason. More specifically, we have a mix of Zlotnikov's ideas about an ideal state (the poor fellow-hero falls to us precisely from such a utopia) and a modern mafia action movie "a la russe". The first is represented by pathetic clichés with an attempt at aphorism, the second ... the second has not changed since the beginning of the 90s, when a flood of reading material flooded the shelves. The difference is only in the class of presentation (in this case level is sufficient to cause no adverse reaction).

In general, the opus turned out to be rather weak. Perhaps the strongest component is the style: smooth, clean, no frills, but it will do. Thanks to what evening UD to dedicate really. Everything else can be criticized in different ways and from different points of view. Someone is deeply disgusted by monarchist-militarist motives, someone is tired of the Akyn songs of the series “I’ll kill everyone, I’ll stay alone”, someone ...

P.S. But the worst thing is that I personally do not see the future of the series. It is clear that the trademark "Zlotnikov" will be popular for a long time, and therefore make a profit. But a decent plot-semantic development of UD simply cannot be. If the co-authors find a way out, I'll take off my hat.

Score: 6

In principle, all Zlotnikov's books are similar to each other, but, as comrade sinmikhail rightly noted below, it is still interesting to read it. For me, Zlotnikov was for a long time an author who could be turned to when a situation arises - something needs to be read (road, queue, mood, etc.), but there is nothing concrete and pre-selected at hand. I was always ready to take on him, even knowing in advance that the book would certainly contain emotional anguish, a special aggravation of the details of some atrocities perpetrated by the enemies of the GG, and the hero himself would be a kind of knight without fear, reproach and doubt. Standard, but familiar and interesting. However, here, the right word, I was a little confused. It seems that everything is as usual, and the idea is understandable “a certain foreign person (of course, with special abilities, otherwise we have no way for him) awakens real human qualities in people and wonders why people don’t want to be honest people and abide by laws.” The message itself, in principle, is clear, but its embodiment makes you think. Moreover, it is not clear who to blame, whether everything was written by a new little-known author, and Zlotnikov's name was used for marketing purposes, or, indeed, Zlotnikov no longer knows what to write about, and is experimenting with new moves.

I won’t say anything about the main character, he is the same type, standard as an amoeba and completely uninteresting as a person and a character in the book. As the author himself wrote, he is a foreign body in our society, he has his own concepts of morality, which he considers to be the only true ones and in every possible way implants them without caring much about the fates and thoughts of those who follow him (moreover, there is clearly something - some zombies, but the author is silent about this, as undoubtedly negative and inconsistent with the ideal GG). As one "evil cop" rightly told Guy Tregray about his former colleague, who had become on the True Path, "what a guy he spoiled"! Until the very end of the book, I personally was on the side of the “corrupt”, but living, humane and real policemen, as well as the main enemy, the businessman-philanthropist, because whatever one may say, but if you look, this city was many times more sense from him than from a zealot of piety who has fallen from nowhere. Apparently, the author himself realized by the end of the book that the main enemy turns out to be painfully positive, and as a result, his image was supplemented by the qualities of a nymphophile cocaine addict. Moreover, if you look closely, it becomes clear that both at the beginning and at the end of the book the images are completely different people, and, taking into account the fact that in the process of the book it is not mentioned anywhere about any of its transformations, it becomes clear that this addition was made out of hopelessness, so that the reader would finally have the thought “yes, how the earth wears it!” and "how long!".

Despite the fact that the book ends with a hint of a sequel, the question arises: "Is it necessary?" Perhaps it would be better for everyone, both for the reader and for the authors, to simply forget about this "fan fiction on Zlotnikov" as an annoying, but useful literary experience for a young writer?

Score: 5

Rare to find today good literature. And when I say “good”, I don’t mean “beautifully written” or “full of action”, but literature that carries some kind of semantic load. And useful.

This book is very topical and shows our usual life from a not pleasant, but important point of view. The degradation of morality and such basic human concepts as honor, pride and honesty are almost lost, and this is exactly what you begin to see after it. I was surprised to meet a popular contemporary writer such a book. And its value is not in good language, interesting story or living characters. No. It makes people better - and this is a rarity.

Score: 9

A little like the usual Zlotnikov (Berserkers, Eternal, Gron). Recently, books under the name of the author are full of enthusiastic semantic content in the style of “Russians are the best, Russians go ahead!”. Alas, but at the same time, the rest of the meaning decreases from book to book. Heroes know what is right and good, and if you know what is right and good, does anything else matter?

It's easy to read, although there were some creasing in places.

Score: 6

It could have been a great book if it wasn't so bad.

A super-warrior with mental abilities, an excellent student in combat and drill training, a handsome man, a member of the Komsomol and just a great guy from the world of the triumph of Justice and Order, comes to us, to a dirty and gray world that exists "according to concepts." The young man adapts very quickly and begins to do good right and left, along the way getting into various troubles.

If the harsh totalitarian years were in the yard of the events taking place in the book, I would say without a doubt that the book was mediocrely written off from the Inhabited Island. But the action takes place in our days and I took up reading with interest. Agree, it is interesting to learn about the development of the conditional Maxim Kammerer in our time, about the change in his perception, about the trials and errors that he could make in an effort to improve our lives.

Unfortunately, none of this is in the book. Main character like it was carved out of stone. It is monumental and inspires respect, but it is not alive. A doll that is capable of acting only according to a given program. A puppet in the hands of the author, through which the respected Roman Valeryevich broadcasts about the ideal, from his point of view, world. Yes, the world of Eden in the view of Zlotnikov is good, but it is no different from the main character of the book - the same monumental, stone and ... dead.

The novel, as already noted, is read quite easily and naturally, the detached dialogues about right and wrong can be skipped - unfortunately, there is nothing but water in them.

Score: 5

It reminded Golovachev of the mid-nineties. One superhero against our immoral society))). Well, there is enough moralizing, of course. But it is read quite easily, despite the inserts about the meaning of life.

Score: 7

Yes, this book is not for everyone. Not in the sense that “grow up, you, the reader, need to ...” - God forbid, from such moralizing. I'm talking about something else. About the controversy of the message itself, which - being misunderstood (not with the "author's intonation", if you like) is capable of smearing the whole impression (planned by the authors), as they say.

Because, from a formal point of view, both the fantastic Idea and the fantastic Anturvje (as well as everything else necessary for “fixing belonging to the genre”) are presented in full. From the point of view of the genre itself - “as per the instructions”, there is nothing to complain about.

But the personal perception of “it happens - it doesn’t happen” is already much more complicated, since it turns out to be quite strongly “colored” by various aspects of the perception of a particular reader. And in the list of these aspects - not in the last place are political and moral (in the high sense of the word), etc.

In the end, truths like “... do not judge, lest you be judged ...” or “... I say to you: do not resist evil. But whoever strikes you on your right cheek, turn to him the other also ... ”- they are far from ambiguous not“ THEY WERE once, ”and even today they remain just as ambiguous. After Millennia of Cult. Alas, this is, as they say, “who studied what”, this is a question - a conscious choice of the Personality. And there is no right or wrong here.

For those who have not read it yet, but are already about to be upset like “... ooh, another non-resistance to evil by violence, another holy fool ...” - I hasten to please: what are you, brothers and sisters, here is such a messy noble that "Streets of broken lanterns" - they nervously smoke on the sidelines. Ours are so “they give a light to them” that you just get pumped. Only now - not "immediately in the face", but first - as a rule, they will say "it's not good, this is what you, my friend, allow yourself here: stop, otherwise I will punish you approximately." Since - a born nobleman, brought up like that. Only the "nobles" - they are not "ours", so to speak, but quite the contrary - they are from another planet, from the opposite end of the Galaxy. Or - in general - the Universe, is not specified.

So think, dear potential reader, whether you are annoyed not by ostentatious, but, as they say, “imbued with mother's milk” concepts of Honor, Dignity, Duty. If you do not irritate - read boldly, YOUR book. Well, if you think that all of this is complete bullshit, a fairy tale for fools - well, don’t read it, it turns out - it’s not yours

Score: 10

Probably, first of all, the book will be of interest to those who had even the slightest relation to the army, because ninety percent of the action in it takes place within the military unit and the small army team itself. Several conscripts end up in the “troops”, where they face the oppression of hazing and the absolute indifference of the “fathers-commanders”.

The name of Roman Zlotnikov is known to all fans of the combat fantasy genre. He wrote the book "A Born Nobleman" in collaboration with Anton Kornilov. Here you can see a very eventful plot. The main character is a hitman, but most often in books it is our man, who finds himself on an alien planet or in parallel world, here - on our planet turned out to be a stranger. This is already a very interesting idea.

On the one hand, the hero seems too young and sometimes naive, which will attract readers more. adolescence, but on the other hand, you need to keep in mind that the book contains a lot of cruel, even disgusting, scenes. Here you can see the idea of ​​​​an ideal state, as well as think about whether it is realistic to build it.

Oleg is a subject of the great Empire, a cadet of the Higher Military Academy, he has outstanding abilities and skills martial art. He is used to living in a world where goodness and justice reign. And so Oleg somehow ended up on our planet. He saw that everything here was not as perfect as he was used to. Oleg will try to show how one should really live, how important goodness and good deeds. And how much he will succeed, how easy it will be for him to get used to our world with its shortcomings is another question.

The work belongs to the fantasy genre. It was published in 2012 by AST. This book is part of the Born Nobleman series. On our site you can download the book "A Born Nobleman" in fb2, rtf, epub, pdf, txt format or read online. The rating of the book is 4.02 out of 5. Here, before reading, you can also refer to the reviews of readers who are already familiar with the book and find out their opinion. In the online store of our partner you can buy and read the book in paper form.