5 books by the Strugatsky brothers that everyone should read

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

Now the books of the Strugatsky brothers are officially openly available. Lifehacker has collected the main works of Soviet science fiction writers, which everyone should read.

Several years ago, the books of the Strugatsky brothers were already published in electronic form and freely distributed on the Runet. Then the heirs of the writers closed the library in 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 dismantled for quotations. After reading the ABS, you can theatrically fall on the sofa, shouting: "Noble don hit in the heel!"

The abbreviation ABS started the tradition of assigning abbreviations to every science fiction book. So PNS - "Monday starts on Saturday", TBB - "It's hard to be God."

Many literary scholars and simply enthusiastic people advise reading the Strugatskys in chronological order. Lifehacker recommends starting with any book on this list.

1 and 2. NIICHAVO cycle

• Science fiction, satire.
• Year of publication: 1965-1967.
• Place and time of action: Russia, 20th century.
• Reader's age: any.

The cycle about the everyday life of the staff of the Research Institute of Witchcraft and Wizardry has only one drawback: it consists of only two books. But it is from them that many discover the Strugatskys.

We also recommend that you start with an easy one - with the novellas "Monday starts on Saturday" and "The Tale of the Troika." Science fiction can be satirical. And the everyday life of scientific workers 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 Troika" →

3. It's hard to be a god

• Social fiction.
• Place and time of action: outside the Earth, distant future.
• Year of publication: 1964.
• Reader's age: any.

There is no laughing matter here. The story "It's Difficult to Be God" is considered one of the iconic works of the Strugatskys - the very embodiment of social fiction. Imagine a distant planet stuck in the Middle Ages. Now send historians from our time to this planet and think about how they will help this society achieve a brighter future.

Now imagine that you are the most powerful on the planet and will survive when the world around you collapses. But despite all your strength, power and knowledge ahead of time, you cannot save everyone. Even the most beloved ones. What would win in you - human or social?

… We know and understand men (…), but none of us would dare to say that he knows and understands women. And children, for that matter! After all, children are, of course, the third special type of intelligent creatures that live on Earth.

Boris Strugatsky

By the way, this is one of the few Strugatsky books in which there is a leading female character - a rarity for ABS books.

Read "It's hard to be a god" →

4. Roadside picnic

• Adventure fiction.
• Year of publication: 1972.
• Place and time of action: Earth, 21st century.
• Reader's age: any.

Heavy, gloomy, pessimistic book. The scene is Earth after the alien invasion. People live a life in which every day a mortal danger hangs over them, but everyone is already so used to it that they take it for a routine.

What if the aliens aren't friendly humanoids or giant cockroaches wishing to destroy Orion's belt? What if anomalous Zones appear on your planet, into which everyone rushes? Dangerous. Fearfully. Deadly. But you can feel alive only by avoiding death.

That's right: a person needs money in order to never think about it.

"Roadside Picnic"

Andrei Tarkovsky made the film "Stalker" based on this story. 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 making a series based on the story.

The book contains no more than 180 pages. Read it before the release of the series to understand what chasm separates modern commercial projects from the completely non-commercial Strugatskys.

Read "Roadside Picnic" →

5. The doomed city

• Social fiction.
• Place and time of action: another world, indefinite time.
• Year of publication: 1989.
• Reader's age: for adults.

Precisely doomed, not doomed. The ABS named their novel after the painting by Nicholas Roerich, which amazed them with "its gloomy beauty and the feeling of hopelessness that emanated from it."

You agree to an experiment and go to an artificially created world. This time the alien is you. And around you Babylon, filled with the same people who have their own vices, knowledge and ulterior motives. The world resembles an anthill, into which occasionally someone great pokes a stick to stir up the movement. What happens when the experiment gets out of control? And if this is not the first experiment?

The Strugatsky brothers are excellent at combining complex socio-psychological motives and dynamic action in one work. Therefore, they are equally interesting to read for both a schoolchild and a professor of social psychology. But if you want to understand what the book is really about, grow up. And then grab the Doomed City.

Read "The Doomed City" →