Definitely Maybe

Author: Arkady Strugatsky
Publisher: Melville House
ISBN: 1612192823
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 162

Book Description
In its first-ever unexpurgated edition, a sci-fi landmark that's a comic and suspenseful tour-de-force, and puts distraction in a whole new light: It's not you, it's the universe! Boris and Arkady Strugatsky were the greatest science fiction writers of the Soviet era: their books were intellectually provocative and riotously funny, full of boldly imagined scenarios and veiled—but clear—social criticism. Which may be why Definitely Maybe has never before been available in an uncensored edition, let alone in English. It tells the story of astrophysicist Dmitri Malianov, who has sent his wife and son off to her mother’s house in Odessa so that he can work, free from distractions, on the project he’s sure will win him the Nobel Prize. But he’d have an easier time making progress if he wasn’t being interrupted all the time: First, it’s the unexpected delivery of a crate of vodka and caviar. Then a beautiful young woman in an unnervingly short skirt shows up at his door. Then several of his friends—also scientists—drop by, saying they all felt they were on the verge of a major discovery when they got . . . distracted . . . Is there an ominous force that doesn’t want knowledge to progress? Or could it be something more . . . natural? In this nail-bitingly suspenseful book, the Strugatsky brothers bravely and brilliantly question authority: an authority that starts with crates of vodka, but has lightning bolts in store for humans who refuse to be cowed.

The Inhabited Island

Author: Arkady Strugatsky
Publisher: Chicago Review Press
ISBN: 1613736002
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 363

Book Description
When Maxim Kammerer, a young space explorer from twenty-second-century Earth, crash-lands on an uncharted world, he thinks of himself as a latter-day Robinson Crusoe. Eager to establish first contact with the planet's humanlike inhabitants, he finds himself increasingly entangled in their primitive way of life. After his experiences in their nightmarish military, criminal justice, and mental health systems, Maxim begins to realize that his sojourn on this radioactive and war-scarred world will not be a walk in the park. The Inhabited Island is one of the Strugatsky brothers' most popular and acclaimed novels, yet the only previous English-language edition (Prisoners of Power) was based on a version heavily censored by Soviet authorities. Now, in a sparkling new edition by award-winning translator Andrew Bromfield, this land-mark novel can be newly appreciated by both longtime Strugatsky fans and new explorers of the Russian science fiction masters' astonishingly rich body of work.

Monday Starts on Saturday

Author: Boris Strugatsky
Publisher: Chicago Review Press
ISBN: 1613739265
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 276

Book Description
Sasha, a young computer programmer from Leningrad, is driving north to meet some friends for a nature vacation. He picks up a couple of hitchhikers, who persuade him to take a job at the National Institute for the Technology of Witchcraft and Thaumaturgy. The adventures Sasha has in the largely dysfunctional institute involve all sorts of magical beings—a wish-granting fish, a tree mermaid, a cat who can remember only the beginnings of stories, a dream-interpreting sofa, a motorcycle that can zoom into the imagined future, a lazy dog-size mosquito—along with a variety of wizards (including Merlin), vampires, and officers. First published in Russia in 1965, Monday Starts on Saturday has become the most popular Strugatsky novel in their homeland. Like the works of Gogol and Kafka, it tackles the nature of institutions—here focusing on one devoted to discovering and perfecting human happiness. By turns wildly imaginative, hilarious, and disturbing, Monday Starts on Saturday is a comic masterpiece by two of the world's greatest science-fiction writers.

Hard to Be a God

Author: Arkady Strugatsky
Publisher: Chicago Review Press
ISBN: 1613748310
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 258

Book Description
Arkady and Boris Strugatsky are widely known as the greatest Russian writers of science fiction, and their 1964 novel Hard to Be a God is considered one of the greatest of their works. It tells the story of Don Rumata, who is sent from Earth to the medieval kingdom of Arkanar with instructions to observe and to influence, but never to directly interfere. Masquerading as an arrogant nobleman, a dueler and a brawler, Don Rumata is never defeated but can never kill. With his doubt and compassion, and his deep love for a local girl named Kira, Rumata wants to save the kingdom from the machinations of Don Reba, the First Minister to the king. But given his orders, what role can he play? Hard to Be a God has inspired a computer role-playing game and two movies, including Aleksei German's long-awaited swan song. Yet until now the only English version (out of print for over thirty years) was based on a German translation, and was full of errors, infelicities, and misunderstandings. This new edition—translated by Olena Bormashenko, whose translation of the authors' Roadside Picnic has received widespread acclaim, and supplemented with a new foreword by Hari Kunzru and an afterword by Boris Strugatsky, both of which supply much-needed context—reintroduces one of the most profound Soviet-era novels to an eager audience.

Thank God It's Monday

Author: Paul Bartlett
Publisher: WestBow Press
ISBN: 1490873090
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 202

Book Description
Let’s face it: this generation is increasingly not waking up Sunday morning thinking, what’s a great church I can go to today? Part of the problem is that for too long we’ve made church mostly about Christians doing spiritual stuff on Sundays. Of course, we love our Sundays, but we should be even more excited about our Mondays, because on those days God has positioned us in shop fronts, in salons, in classrooms, in playgroups, on building sites, and in boardrooms where we can engage with those who don’t yet know Him. Church must be less about us and more about others. We should be empowering Christians to act as Christ in their communities Monday through Saturday. That’s why Christians should be waking up on Mondays declaring, “Thank God it’s Monday!” In this thought-provoking book, Paul Bartlett encourages us that can have a huge influence in our community, across our town or city, and throughout the nation... and it starts on Monday.

Prisoners of Power

Author: Arkadij Strugackij
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780140051346
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 315

Book Description

Saturday

Author: Ian McEwan
Publisher: Vintage Canada
ISBN: 0307371220
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 290

Book Description
"Dazzling. . . . Profound and urgent" —Observer "A book of great maturity, beautifully alive to the fragility of happiness and all forms of violence. . . . Everyone should read Saturday" —Financial Times Saturday, February 15, 2003. Henry Perowne, a successful neurosurgeon, stands at his bedroom window before dawn and watches a plane—ablaze with fire like a meteor—arcing across the London sky. Over the course of the following day, unease gathers about Perowne, as he moves among hundreds of thousands of anti-war protestors who’ve taken to the streets in the aftermath of 9/11. A minor car accident brings him into confrontation with Baxter, a fidgety, aggressive man, who to Perowne’s professional eye appears to be profoundly unwell. But it is not until Baxter makes a sudden appearance at the Perowne family home that Henry’s earlier fears seem about to be realized. . .

Lame Fate | Ugly Swans

Author: Arkady Strugatsky
Publisher: Chicago Review Press
ISBN: 1641600691
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 342

Book Description
Today, Russian authors Arkady and Boris Strugatsky are counted among the best science fiction writers of the twentieth century, but their relationship with the late-Soviet literary establishment was often fraught. By the late 1960s, publishers had become increasingly reluctant to release their works, but their novels and short stories, retyped by hand, circulated widely through unofficial channels within the Soviet Union and occasionally turned up abroad in unauthorized translation. The nested novels Ugly Swans and Lame Fate offer insight into this period of enforced silence. Never before translated into English, Lame Fate tells the story of middle-aged author Felix Sorokin, who is asked by the Soviet Writers' Union to submit a writing sample to a new computer program that will scientifically evaluate its "objective value" as a literary work. Sorokin must choose whether to present something establishment- approved or risk sharing his unpublished masterpiece. Sorokin's masterwork is Ugly Swans, previously published in English as a standalone work but presented here in an authoritative new translation. Its hero, disgraced literary celebrity Victor Banev, returns to his hometown to find it haunted by the mysterious "clammies"—black-masked outcasts with supernatural talents who terrify the town's adult population but enthrall its teenagers, including Banev's own daughter. Together, Lame Fate and Ugly Swans illuminate some of the Strugatskys' favorite themes—the (im)possibility of political progress, the role of the individual in society, the nature of honor and courage, and the enduring value of art—in consummately entertaining fashion. By turns chilling, uproarious, and moving, these intertwining stories are sure to delight readers from all walks of life.

One Billion Years to the End of the World

Author: Arkady Strugatsky
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 0141994487
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 115

Book Description
'A beautiful book' Ursula K. Le Guin This mordantly funny and provocative tale from Soviet Russia's leading science fiction writers is the story of astrophysicist Dmitri Malianov. As he reaches a major breakthrough, he finds himself plagued by interruptions, from a mysterious crate of vodka to a glamorous woman on his doorstep. Is the Universe trying to tell him something? 'On putting down one of their books, you feel a cold breeze still lifting the hairs on the back of your neck' The New York Times

Snail on the Slope

Author: Arkady Strugatsky
Publisher: Chicago Review Press
ISBN: 1613737572
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 213

Book Description
The Snail on the Slope takes place in two worlds. One is the Administration, an institution run by a surreal, Kafkaesque bureaucracy whose aim is to govern the forest below. The other is the Forest, a place of fear, weird creatures, primitive people and violence. Peretz, who works at the Administration, wants to visit the Forest. Candide crashed in the Forest years ago and wants to return to the Administration. Their journeys are surprising and strange, and readers are left to puzzle out the mysteries of these foreign environments. The Strugatskys themselves called The Snail on the Slope "the most complete and important" of their works.