Ukrainian writer Maksym Kidruk spoke about problems with the website of the publishing house «Borodatiy Tamarin» and his personal website after the announcement and start of pre-orders for the book «New Dark Ages. Collapse».
Ukrainian writer Maksym Kidruk spoke about problems with the website of the publishing house «Borodatiy Tamarin» and his personal website after the announcement and start of pre-orders for the book «New Dark Ages. Collapse».
Maksym Kidruk was going to announce the long-awaited sequel to the science fiction novel «New Dark Ages. Colony» in mid-November. However, the writer postponed the announcement several times due to massive Russian attacks on Ukraine, which killed and injured dozens of Ukrainians.
«Moving the pre-order to the day before was a kind of crash test for us, because even without an announcement, people were constantly on the site. At ten in the morning on November 25, there were 970 users on the site, constantly updating the main page,» Kidruk reported on his social networks.
According to him, although the announcement did not happen, users still crashed the website of the publishing house «Borodatiy Tamarin», as well as the writer’s personal website maxkidruk.соm. He added that the crash test helped prepare for the influx of visitors, but in the end it still did not save from problems.
The events of the cycle take place in 2141. The novel has a significant number of main characters on Earth and Mars with their own plot branches. It presents various countries and regions of the world, including Ukraine, which has survived another war with Russia, as well as the influential Ukrainian diaspora on Mars, mostly involved in the agricultural holding «Tomuto», which almost monopolizes the production of food products.
On November 26, Maksym Kidruk officially announced the book «New Dark Ages. Collapse.» He reported that within two minutes of the announcement, the publishing house’s website had 6,150 users. The site didn’t crash, but CloudFlare, balancing the load, began to slow down work for many visitors.
«Someone might ask, why not buy a server capable of serving 10,000 clients? Unfortunately, this is impractical. Our daily traffic is insignificant compared to what happened yesterday, so it’s the same as buying a 22-ton truck to transport furniture once when moving to a new apartment,» the writer explained.
Kidruk added that the system had leveled out the load, but it remained at 96-98% for another three hours. Some users managed to order a book the first time, while others were forced to wait due to overload protection.
The publishing house’s website was visited by 16,863 people in one day, and the pre-order page was viewed over 36,000 times. According to Maksym Kidruk, almost 6,000 books were sold.
«For context: the 2022 pre-order for „Colony“ lasted a month and a half, and by the time it ended, we had collected a little over 5,800 orders. That is, in the 24 hours since the start of the pre-order for „Collaps“ we have more sales than during the entire pre-order period for „Colony“ three years ago,» he noted.
«The New Dark Ages. Collapse» has 944 pages and costs 699 UAH. It is expected to be published in late February 2026.
