(Odissey of a Chess Machine). The book is partly a novel, in part a documentary about a chess machine, also known as the Turk, which was designed and constructed 250 years ago by the outstanding inventor Baron Wolfgang von Kempelen. Kempelen's mechanical chess player traveled all over Europe, playing in Vienna, Paris and London, defeating among others Napoleon and other crowned heads. Viktor Lvovich Chenkin, 1923-2010, chess master, journalist and writer, worked on the novel for about 25 years and tried to describe the atmosphere of the second half of the XVIII century as accurately as possible. He sought perfection, reworked the finished chapters many times, but couldn't finish his novel. His novel was completed by his wife, Tatyana Gubarkova, who had worked with him on the book before.