Anton "Tony" Vilgotsky (Russian: Антон Вильгоцкий) is a Russian musician, composer, horror and

fantasy Fantasy is a genre of speculative fiction involving magical elements, typically set in a fictional universe and sometimes inspired by mythology and folklore. Its roots are in oral traditions, which then became fantasy literature and d ...

writer, playwright, and musical columnist. He is mostly known for his fantasy and horror novels (''Chosen by the Pentacle'', ''Evil Never Sleeps'', ''The Charmed Roads'', ''Shepherd of the Dead'' and others) as well as his journalist work in such magazines like ''Dark City'', ''

Mir Fantastiki ''Mir Fantastiki'' (russian: Мир фантастики), officially abbreviated as ''MirF'', is a Russian monthly science fiction and fantasy magazine. The name also refers to the website run by the magazine, Mirf.ru. ''Mir Fantastiki'' litera ...

'', ''OM'', ''KVIR and Darker.''

Biography

Tony was born on July 14, 1980 in the Southern Russian city Rostov-on-Don. He spent some time studying

journalism Journalism is the production and distribution of reports on the interaction of events, facts, ideas, and people that are the " news of the day" and that informs society to at least some degree. The word, a noun, applies to the occupation (pro ...

at a local university and then started to work as a

correspondent A correspondent or on-the-scene reporter is usually a journalist or commentator for a magazine, or an agent who contributes reports to a newspaper, or radio or television news, or another type of company, from a remote, often distant, locati ...

in a local

daily newspaper A newspaper is a periodical publication containing written information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background. Newspapers can cover a wide variety of fields such as politics, business, sports ...

. Since his adolescence, he admired the horror genre, which inspired him to begin writing horror stories himself. Two issues of his dark fantasy saga, ''The Chronicles of Skharn'' (Russian: ''Хроники Схарны''), were published by Armada Publishing House in December 2008 and May 2009. The first of these novels landed on 7th position in Top 100 bestselling books of this publishing house of several years. Such phenomenal success of debut novel was unexpected even for author himself. This book was nominated for prestigious Russian fiction award ''Roscon''. The novel ''Evil Never Sleeps'' was nominated for one of the main awards of the fiction festival ''Star Bridge''. Vilgotsky's next novel ''Little Shop of Horrors'' became one of the most anticipated Russian books of the following decade. His books were widely pirated and in 2010 somebody even hacked Vilgotsky's PC with intention to steal his new texts before their official release. The novels ''Eye of Satan'', ''Suburban Necromancer'' and ''The Charmed Roads'' were released in 2012 by company Litres which is a department of biggest Russian publishing house

Eksmo Eksmo (russian: Эксмо) is one of the largest publishing houses in Russia. Eksmo and AST (which it later acquired in 2012) together publish approximately 30% of all Russian books. Established in 1991 as a small book-selling company, Eksmo gr ...

. During very long period Vilgotsky was the main author of Russian metal magazine Dark City. During this period he interviewed such bands like Amon Amarth, Das Ich, Crematory, Sopor Aeternus and the Ensemble of Shadows, Suicide Commando and many more. For some time he was a literary editor of Russian horror webzine The Darkness (Тьма) and continued to write for its successor, Darker magazine. Also, despite Vilgotsky is not a

gay ''Gay'' is a term that primarily refers to a homosexual person or the trait of being homosexual. The term originally meant 'carefree', 'cheerful', or 'bright and showy'. While scant usage referring to male homosexuality dates to the late 1 ...

himself, his articles about different gay musicians often can be noticed in Russian

LGBT ' is an initialism that stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. In use since the 1990s, the initialism, as well as some of its common variants, functions as an umbrella term for sexuality and gender identity. The LGBT term ...

-magazine '' Kvir''. Also he works as translator and music observer in Russian version of

Classic Rock Classic rock is a US radio format which developed from the album-oriented rock (AOR) format in the early 1980s. In the United States, the classic rock format comprises rock music ranging generally from the mid-1960s through the mid 1990s, prima ...

magazine.

He was the first Russian journalist who interviewed American musician and actor

Ari Lehman Ari Lehman (born May 2, 1965) is an American performing artist, composer, and actor. He is known for playing the child Jason Voorhees in the Paramount horror film '' Friday the 13th'', becoming the first actor to portray the horror icon. Lehman ...

(the first portrayer of

Jason Voorhees Jason Voorhees () is a character from the ''Friday the 13th'' series. He first appeared in '' Friday the 13th'' (1980) as the young son of camp-cook-turned-killer Mrs. Voorhees, in which he was portrayed by Ari Lehman. Created by Victor Mi ...

in the first " Friday the 13th" movie), and famous movie composer Harry Manfredini who scored most of the "Friday" movies. The latter interview was published in

Later Vilgotsky interviewed many horror celebrities, including

Tom Savini Thomas Vincent Savini (born November 3, 1946) is an American prosthetic makeup artist, actor, stunt performer and film director. He is known for his makeup and special effects work on many films directed by George A. Romero, including ''Martin' ...

Felissa Rose Felissa Rose Esposito, better known as simply Felissa Rose (born May 23, 1969), is an American actress and producer. Rose has amassed over 100 film credits, and is best known for her work in the horror genre, for which she is recognized as a s ...

Scott Derrickson Scott Derrickson (born July 16, 1966) is an American filmmaker. He is best known for directing the films '' The Exorcism of Emily Rose'' (2005), ''The Day the Earth Stood Still'' (2008), '' Sinister'' (2012), '' Deliver Us from Evil'' (2014), ' ...

, Brian Paulin, Matt Farnsworth, Dieter Laser, Victor Brooke Miller and more. Since 2012, Vilgotsky began to collaborate with Hollywood horror magazine ''Gore Noir''. Also he was noticed among authors of Australian horror magazine Midnight Echo. Vilgotsky is also the first Russian author who created a full biography of Ayn Rand. This book was highly praised by the critics and became a national bestseller in Russia and Ukraine. All copies of the book were sold out during the first month after its release. The novel '' Shepherd of the Dead'' was listed among best new fiction books of the year just a week after its release. Talking on this book the critics compared Vilgotsky's style to that of

Clive Barker Clive Barker (born 5 October 1952) is an English novelist, playwright, author, film director, and visual artist who came to prominence in the mid-1980s with a series of short stories, the ''Books of Blood'', which established him as a leading h ...

. The novel also became a bestseller in

Estonia Estonia, formally the Republic of Estonia, is a country by the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, a ...

, where all the copies of the book were sold out during one night after their delivery from Russia. By the end of the year 2018 novel ''Shepherd of the Dead'' became a national bestseller in Russia too. In biggest Russian online book store, Ozon, the book was completely sold out during few months since its release. This book also went to become a bestseller in

Armenia Armenia (), , group=pron officially the Republic of Armenia,, is a landlocked country in the Armenian Highlands of Western Asia.The UNbr>classification of world regions places Armenia in Western Asia; the CIA World Factbook , , and ' ...

. Vilgotsky's novel ''Warriors of the Church'' was cited in the list of foreign books recommended to Americans who are interested in non-American horror literature. Tony Vilgotsky 2

Illustrations

In 2017 Tony released a new non-fiction book ''Self-Defence by Materials at Hand'' with illustrations drawn by himself. This book is intended mostly for a female audience. The book went to come a huge bestseller in Russia.

Music

In the years 2009-2014 Tony Vilgotsky was active on dark electro scene as a leader of horror electro projec
Soul Cancer
They released several web albums and then disbanded. In one of the tracks the group collaborated with iconic B-movie actor

Dieter Laser Klaus Dieter Laser (17 February 1942 – 29 February 2020) was a German actor. Laser's career spanned over five decades, appearing in both German and English-language productions. He achieved recognition for his lead role in the 2009 film '' The ...

. After the end of Soul Cancer's career Tony as musician and composer focused primarily on film and game soundtrack work. His score for American movie Cryptic Plasm was highly appreciated in Poland.

Video game career

In recent years Tony has quit journalism as his day job, with a goal to focus on his literature works and also to try himself in a world of business. For a year he worked as brand manager and press secretary in one of the largest Russian modeling agencies, Image-Elite, than migrated into video game industry. As it's known, he was a member of at least two game development teams - Aurum Dust and Redox Entertainment, which produced, respectively, such games as ''Ash of Gods: Redemption'' (Tactical RPG) and ''Cows VS Vikings'' (tower defense). Also he provided music soundtracks for several indie games. In December 2016, Vilgotsky announced that he wants to try himself as game designer and that he started to develop his first video game. Details of this project weren't revealed yet. Due to Vilgotsky's popularity over Post-Soviet space, the news about his first game project were widely spread by many sources of the region. Later was announced that Vilgotsky is planning to release another game before the one that was announced earlier. The name of the game is ''Evils Spirits Shotdown'' and it's based on his own novel ''Warriors of the Church''.

Personal life

As Tony admitted in one of his interviews, he is an enthusiastic gamer who began to play videogames from the early childhood. Among his favorite games he lists such titles as Witcher,

Neverwinter Nights ''Neverwinter Nights'' is a series of video games developed by BioWare and Obsidian Entertainment, based on the ''Forgotten Realms'' campaign setting of the ''Dungeons & Dragons'' role-playing game. Aside from also being set in the Dungeons & Dr ...

1 and 2, Hellgate: London and Assassin's Creed. He's a fan of ambient and world music (because, as he admits, he was tired of extreme metal during his metal observer career). He is also a fan of ''

Twin Peaks ''Twin Peaks'' is an American mystery serial drama television series created by Mark Frost and David Lynch. It premiered on ABC on April 8, 1990, and originally ran for two seasons until its cancellation in 1991. The show returned in 2017 for ...

'' and other movies by David Lynch.

Bibliography

Novels *''Chosen by the Pentacle'' (

novel) - 2008 (Armada publishing house, Moscow) *''Evil Never Sleeps'' (fantasy novel) - 2009 (Armada publishing house, Moscow) *''The Charmed Roads'' (fantasy novel) - 2012 (LitRes, Moscow) *''Suburban Necromacer'' ( dark fantasy and horror novel) - 2012 (LitRes, Moscow) *''Eye of Satan'' aka ''Warriors of the Church'' (

action fiction Action fiction is a literary genre that focuses on stories that involve high-stakes, high-energy, and fast-paced events. This genre includes a wide range of sub-genres, such as spy novels, adventure stories, tales of terror and intrigue (" cloak ...

and horror novel) - 2012 (LitRes, Moscow) *''Little Shop of Horrors'' (book of horror stories) - 2012 (LitRes, Moscow) *''Shepherd of the Dead'' (dark fantasy and horror novel) - 2018 (Eksmo, Moscow) *''Day Z'' (

zombie A zombie ( Haitian French: , ht, zonbi) is a mythological undead corporeal revenant created through the reanimation of a corpse. Zombies are most commonly found in horror and fantasy genre works. The term comes from Haitian folklore, in w ...

horror action novel) - 2022 (Author Today, Moscow) *''The Ripper of Petrograd'' ( detective fiction) - TBA Short stories *''The Entomologists'' - 2003 (Donskaya Kultura, Rostov-on-Don)
''Trevor''
- 2013 (Bloody-Mess.net, UK) Non-fiction *''Who is Ayn Rand''? - 2015 ( AST, Moscow) *''Self-defence by materials at hand'' - 2016 (Krylov, St. Petersburg) Scientific researches *''Russian Fields of Mysteries'' - 2013 (Midnight Echo, Australia)

Filmography

Video game music and sound design

*Varnid (2010) *Evil Spirits Shutdown (2017) *Scary Forest (2018)Scary Forest game
/ref> *Broadcast Project (2019) *Space Arcade (2020) *Radiostalker (2020) *Pirates: Golden Tits (2020) *Voiders (2021) *Ilias (2021) *Eggs in Corn (2021) *Redemption (2021) *Galaxy Runner (2021) *Veliri (2021) *Business Angels (2021) *Kingdom's Life (2021) *Edge of the World (2021) *Forbidden Fruit (2021) *Frequency: Chernobyl (2022) *Ratten Reich (2022) *W.I.N.T.E.R. (2022) *Rustlords (2023) *Age of Gunfighters (TBA) *Deadwest (TBA)

References

External links

Tony Vilgotsky's official siteFacebook official pageTony Vilgotsky on Twitter
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Tony Vilgotsky's music on SoundCloud
{{DEFAULTSORT:Vilgotsky, Tony Living people Russian horror writers Russian fantasy writers Russian and Soviet-German people 1980 births Russian film score composers Video game designers