Fyodor Dostoevsky was a novelist of ideas. Ayn Rand praised his “enormous intelligence” and “superb mastery of plot structure”; some of her fiction even has parallels with his. As a writer, he dramatized principles with passionate intensity and psychological complexity. As a man, he took part in Russia’s debates and dangers (including hard labor in Siberia).  Powerful convictions inspired his characters’ actions--and his own.