Andrei Olegovich Belyanin (born 24 January 1967, in Astrakhan) is a Russian science fiction and fantasy writer, who wrote at least 15 novels with many of them selling over 2 million copies. He is especially known for humour and parody in his fiction. Belyanin's novels are mostly ironical chrono-operas, where the pun is based on anachronisms. Belyanin is married. He had a son, Ivan, who was kidnapped in 2004 for sake of ransom. Although the kidnappers were arrested a few days after, Ivan Belyanin was found dead, as they killed him at the day of the kidnapping. The criminals, brothers Kirill and Ivan Kostylev, both were sentenced to prison. Source: Wikipedia (en)