A few years ago the books of the Strugatsky brothers were already published in electronic form and freely distributed in RuNet. Then heirs of writers closed the library as a protest against piracy. And now they changed their minds and returned the texts to free access on the official website.
Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, or ABS, wrote excellent social science fiction – honest, straightforward. Their works have long been analyzed for quotations. Having read ABS, you can fall on the sofa theatrically, crying: “Noble Don is struck in the heel!”
The abbreviation ABS started the tradition of assigning cuts to each book of science fiction writers. So the PNC – “Monday begins on Saturday,” TBB – “It’s hard to be a god.”
Many literary critics and simply enthusiastic people advise reading Strugatsky in chronological order. Lifehacker recommends starting with any book on this list.
1 and 2. The cycle of NIICHAVO
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- Fantasy, satire.
- Year of publication: 1965-1967.
- Place and time of action: Russia, 20th century.
- Age of the reader: any.
The cycle about the everyday life of the staff of the Research Institute of Sorcery and Sorcery has only one drawback: it consists of only two books. But it is with them that many people discover the Strugatsky.
We also recommend that you start with a lung – from the story “Monday begins on Saturday” and “The Tale of the Three”. Science fiction can be satirical. And the everyday life of scientists is fascinating (even if in the end they have to fight not with science, but with bureaucracy).
Read “Monday starts on Saturday” →
Read “The Tale of the Three” →
3. It’s hard to be a god
- Social science fiction.
- Place and time of action: outside the Earth, a distant future.
- Year of publication: 1964.
- Age of the reader: any.
There is no laughing matter. The story “It’s hard to be a god” is considered one of the iconic works of the Strugatsky – the very embodiment of social science fiction. Imagine a distant planet that is stuck in the Middle Ages. Now send to this planet historians from our time and think about how they will help this society achieve a bright future.
Now imagine that you are the most powerful on the planet and will survive, when the world around will collapse. But despite all your strength, the power and knowledge ahead of the time, you are not given to save all. Even the most loved ones. What would prevail in you – human or social?
… we know and understand men (…), but none of us would venture to say that he knows and understands women. And children, if it comes to that! After all, children – this is certainly the third special kind of intelligent beings that live on the Earth.
Boris Strugatsky
By the way, this is one of the few books Strugatsky, which has a leading female character – a rarity for books ABS.
Read “It’s hard to be a god” →
4. Picnic on the sidelines
- Adventure fantasy.
- Year of Publication: 1972.
- Place and time of action: Earth, 21st century.
- Age of the reader: any.
Heavy, gloomy, pessimistic book. The scene is Earth after the invasion of the aliens. People live a life in which every day a deadly danger looms over them, but everyone is already so used to accepting her as a routine.
What if the aliens are not friendly humanoids and giant cockroaches who want to destroy Orion’s belt? What if there are abnormal Zones on your planet, into which all are torn? Dangerous. Fearfully. Deadly. But you can feel alive only by avoiding death.
Everything is right: people need money to never think about them.
“Roadside Picnic”
According to this story, Andrei Tarkovsky produced the film “Stalker”. Developers based on it later released a series of video games S.T.A.L.K.E.R. And now the American representatives of the film industry are doing a series based on the story.
The book does not exceed 180 pages. Read it before the release of the series to understand which gulf separates modern commercial projects from completely non-commercial Strugatsky.
To read “Picnic on the roadside” →
5. The City of the Doomed
- Social science fiction.
- Place and time of action: another world, an indefinite time.
- Year of Publication: 1989.
- Age of the reader: for adults.
It is doomed, not doomed. ABS called their novel in honor of the painting of Nicholas Roerich, which struck them “with its gloomy beauty and sense of hopelessness that came from it”.
You agree to an experiment and go to an artificially created world. This time the newcomer is you. And around you is Babylon, full of the same people, who have their vices, knowledge and hidden motives. The world resembles an anthill, in which occasionally a great man pokes his wand to stir the movement. What will happen when the experiment gets out of control? And if this is not the first experiment?
The Strugatsky brothers are very good at combining complex socio-psychological motives and a dynamic action in one work. Therefore, they are equally interesting to read and the schoolboy, and a professor of social psychology. But if you want to understand what the book really is, grow up. And then grab for the “City of Doom”.
Read “The City of the Doom” →
