Max Frei

1 universe Last reviewed 2026-11-01

Max Frei is the pen name of Svetlana Yuryevna Martynchik, a fantasy writer born in 1965 in Odesa, then in the Ukrainian SSR. She writes in Russian, publishes mostly in Russia, holds Ukrainian citizenship and lives in Vilnius, Lithuania. She has Belarusian and German roots and studied philology at Odesa State University without graduating. From 1986 she worked with the artist Igor Styopin (1967-2018), whom she later married. In 1993 the couple moved to Moscow to work at Marat Gelman's gallery, and there she began writing fantasy. She and Styopin invented the name Max Frei for the Labyrinths of Echo, a comic fantasy series in which Sir Max leaves the real world for the city of Echo and joins a special service that controls magic. Martynchik wrote the books while Styopin developed the Echo setting and illustrated them. She also compiled Fram, a series of short-story anthologies published by Amphora. In 2004 the couple moved to Vilnius, where she wrote Tales of the Old Vilnius, a magic realist series.

Universe(s)

Books

• Чужак (1996) · Labyrinths of Echo Core Canon
• Волонтеры вечности (1997) · Labyrinths of Echo Core Canon
• Наваждения (1997) · Labyrinths of Echo Core Canon
• Простые волшебные вещи (1997) · Labyrinths of Echo Core Canon
• Темная сторона (1997) · Labyrinths of Echo Core Canon
• Власть несбывшегося (1998) · Labyrinths of Echo Core Canon
• Болтливый мертвец (1999) · Labyrinths of Echo Core Canon
• Лабиринт Мёнина (2000) · Labyrinths of Echo Core Canon
• Чуб земли (2004) · Labyrinths of Echo Core Canon
• Властелин Морморы (2005) · Labyrinths of Echo Core Canon
• Неуловимый Хабба Хэн (2005) · Labyrinths of Echo Core Canon
• Ворона на мосту (2006) · Labyrinths of Echo Core Canon
• Горе господина Гро (2007) · Labyrinths of Echo Core Canon
• Обжора-хохотун (2010) · Labyrinths of Echo Core Canon
• Дар Шаванахолы (2011) · Labyrinths of Echo Core Canon
• Тубурская игра (2013) · Labyrinths of Echo Core Canon
• Мастер ветров и закатов (2014) · Labyrinths of Echo Core Canon
• Вся правда о нас (2015) · Labyrinths of Echo Core Canon
• Слишком много кошмаров (2015) · Labyrinths of Echo Core Canon
• Я иду искать (2016) · Labyrinths of Echo Core Canon
• Отдай мое сердце (2017) · Labyrinths of Echo Core Canon
• Сундук мертвеца (2017) · Labyrinths of Echo Core Canon
• Мертвый ноль (2018) · Labyrinths of Echo Core Canon
• Так берегись (2019) · Labyrinths of Echo Core Canon

Aggregate across all universes

• Total Core Canon books across all universes: 24 books
• Award recognitions across all universes: 0 (None recorded)

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