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Before turning to fiction in 2012, Smekalin had a distinguished career as an engineer-mathematician. He was a co-author of the first Soviet school textbook on informatics (1985) and served as the head of educational informatization at the Russian Ministry of Education in the mid-1990s.

: His prose is often described as "high quality" and easy to read. Before turning to fiction in 2012, Smekalin had

: Some readers note that several of his series remain unfinished and have expressed a strong desire for him to complete these long-running stories. Before turning to fiction in 2012