Vladimir Ivanovich Savchenko (Ukrainian: Володимир Іванович Савченко; Russian: Владимир Иванович Савченко) was a Soviet Ukrainian science fiction writer and engineer. Born on February 15, 1933, in Poltava, he studied at the Moscow Power Engineering Institute and was an electronics engineer. Savchenko, who wrote in Russian as well as in his native Ukrainian language, published his first short stories in the late 1950s, and his first novel (Black Stars) in 1960. His works were often self-published. Savchenko also authored several texts about physics and engineering, including the article "Sixteen New Formulas of Physics and Cosmology," which he considered to be his most important scientific text. As of today, Savchenko's works have been published in 29 countries and have been translated into many of the world's languages. He was found dead on January 19, 2005, in Kyiv. He was 71 years old. Source: Wikipedia (en)