Career
His work is influenced by that of the Strugatsky brothers. Gromov is a former electronic engineer and an amateur astronomer. While most of his novels have a well-defined hard scientific background, Gromov"s main interest is social science fiction, as he explains it: I still have to tell a couple of words about my works — not about each one, but about all of them.
The recipe of it, worked out by H. G. Wells, has not changed till the present day and looks like this: you take a socium (limited number of people is better — easier to work) and do some ugly thing to it, and then you sit and look at the consequences.
Two of Gromov"s books focus on a theme of power. His novella Saint Vitus Minuet (Menuet Svyatogo Vitta, 1997), deals with an emerging society on an unexplored planet and the psychological aspects of survival.
His novel Master of the Void discusses the transition of a peaceful nation in harmony with the nature to an industrial war dictatorship. lieutenant examines the surrounding mechanisms of power in the fictional government as well as the protagonist"s rise to leadership.