The article studies the biography of the Soviet writer N. N. Shpanov (1896–1961). The article explores the life and work of the soviet writer N. Shpanov (1896–1961). In his biography reflects many features of the development of Soviet society and his mentality in the 1920s – 1950s. The military pilot and an engineer in the 1920s, promoting new types of technology. In 1930s Shpanov becoming one the founders of the genre of science fiction in the Soviet military literature. During World War II, working as a war correspondent. In the 1940s – 1950s, taking in his novels attempt to show the causes of the Second World War from the perspective of official Soviet propaganda.