Everything is clear at first. Man: lucky, impulsive, who managed to take advantage of the chances of the 90s and early 2000s. But with every passing moment of the "adult" life of the novel's hero — with every second of five hundred million — the boundaries of reality are spreading.: dreams become memories, memories become dreams, and reality ends in mid—sentence. On another plane of the novel, the path of an entire generation of the business elite is shown: from daring beginnings to the loss of the ability to withstand the inevitable impending madness. This is a novel about time that cannot be held, and about a dream from which it is impossible to get out. "This elegant book, reminiscent of Cunningham's novels in its reflection, and the famous novel by David Roberts in its contemplative beauty, is devoted to one topic — perhaps the main topic for a modern "civilized" person (however, why only modern?): the theme of a hopeless struggle for freedom in the form of control over time, space, one's own body, one's own Finally, with the brain, the struggle against the horror of helplessness in the face of both the outside world and oneself. The hopelessness of this struggle lies not only in the mortality and limitations of each of us, but also in the fact that control gives no more freedom than its absence, these are only two sides of our lack of freedom; perhaps the way out is to give up the struggle, in madness (for the mind is control by definition) — as the author asks and the lyrical hero; the book doesn't give an answer, because there can't be one; but it definitely makes you think about the question." — Andrey Movchan "Georgy Japaridze's book is interesting and painful to read at the same time. It's interesting, because at the center of the story is the real hero of our time, "Grigory Alexandrovich Pechorin," only active and suffering in the twenty—first century, not the nineteenth. The name is "Pechorina" Sasha. And from Sasha is impossible to break away. It hurts — because in Sasha, many of us recognize ourselves and the collapse of our own illusions. Do you remember how in the noughties it seemed to us that something depended on our ambitions, desires and successes? Do you remember how we thought we were determining how our lives would turn out? But in fact, everything turned out to be not quite like that. Japaridze's book "500 Million Seconds" is a bucket of ice water tipped over his head in the early morning. It's time to get up. It's time to put on a suit and go to work. It's time to finally admit that your voice no longer matters on the board of directors. All that matters is the voice in your head. Listen to him." — Roman is Super