Roadside Picnic

Author: Arkady Strugatsky
Publisher: Chicago Review Press
ISBN: 1613743440
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 226

Book Description
Red Schuhart is a stalker, one of those young rebels who are compelled, in spite of extreme danger, to venture illegally into the Zone to collect the mysterious artifacts that the alien visitors left scattered around. His life is dominated by the place and the thriving black market in the alien products. But when he and his friend Kirill go into the Zone together to pick up a &“full empty,&” something goes wrong. And the news he gets from his girlfriend upon his return makes it inevitable that he'll keep going back to the Zone, again and again, until he finds the answer to all his problems. First published in 1972, Roadside Picnic is still widely regarded as one of the greatest science fiction novels, despite the fact that it has been out of print in the United States for almost thirty years. This authoritative new translation corrects many errors and omissions and has been supplemented with a foreword by Ursula K. Le Guin and a new afterword by Boris Strugatsky explaining the strange history of the novel's publication in Russia.

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.

The Crimson Queen

Author: Alec Hutson
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780998227603
Category : Fantasy fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 422

Book Description
Long ago the world fell into twilight, when the great empires of old consumed each other in sorcerous cataclysms. In the south the Star Towers fell, swallowed by the sea, while the black glaciers descended upon the northern holdfasts, entombing the cities of Min-Ceruth in ice and sorcery. Then from the ancient empire of Menekar the paladins of Ama came, putting every surviving sorcerer to the sword and cleansing their taint from the land for the radiant glory of their lord. The pulse of magic slowed, fading like the heartbeat of a dying man. But after a thousand years it has begun to quicken again. In a small fishing village a boy with strange powers comes of age . . . A young queen rises in the west, fanning the long-smoldering embers of magic into a blaze once more . . . Something of great importance is stolen - or freed - from the mysterious Empire of Swords and Flowers . . . And the immortals who survived the ancient cataclysms bestir themselves, casting about for why the world is suddenly changing . . .

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.

Beneath the World, a Sea

Author: Chris Beckett
Publisher: Atlantic Books
ISBN: 1786491567
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 266

Book Description
'A disturbing descent into a surreal world, written with a deft hand.' Adrian Tchaikovsky, winner of the Arthur C. Clarke Award 2016 South America, 1990. Ben Ronson, a British police officer, arrives in a mysterious forest to investigate a spate of killings of Duendes. These silent, vaguely humanoid creatures - with long limbs and black button eyes - have a strange psychic effect on people, unleashing the subconscious and exposing their innermost thoughts and fears. Ben becomes fascinated by the Duendes, but the closer he gets, the more he begins to unravel, with terrifying results... Beneath the World, A Sea is a tour de force of modern fiction - a deeply searching and unsettling novel about the human subconscious, and all that lies beneath. 'Beckett is superb at undercutting reader assumptions with a casual line of dialogue or acute psychological observation: the book reads like Conrad's Heart of Darkness reimagined by JG Ballard.' Guardian

The Dead Mountaineer's Inn

Author: Arkady Strugatsky
Publisher: Melville House
ISBN: 1612194338
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 258

Book Description
A hilarious spoof on the classic country-house murder mystery, from the Russian masters of sci-fi—never before translated When Inspector Peter Glebsky arrives at the remote ski chalet on vacation, the last thing he intends to do is get involved in any police work. He’s there to ski, drink brandy, and loaf around in blissful solitude. But he hadn’t counted on the other vacationers, an eccentric bunch including a famous hypnotist, a physicist with a penchant for gymnastic feats, a sulky teenager of indeterminate gender, and the mysterious Mr. and Mrs. Moses. And as the chalet fills up, strange things start happening—things that seem to indicate the presence of another, unseen guest. Is there a ghost on the premises? A prankster? Something more sinister? And then an avalanche blocks the mountain pass, and they’re stuck. Which is just about when they find the corpse. Meaning that Glebksy’s vacation is over and he’s embarked on the most unusual investigation he’s ever been involved with. In fact, the further he looks into it, the more Glebsky realizes that the victim may not even be human. In this late novel from the legendary Russian sci-fi duo—here in its first-ever English translation—the Strugatskys gleefully upend the plot of many a Hercule Poirot mystery—and the result is much funnier, and much stranger, than anything Agatha Christie ever wrote.

Nova Swing

Author: M. John Harrison
Publisher: Bantam
ISBN: 0553904299
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 274

Book Description
Years after Ed Chianese’s fateful trip into the Kefahuchi Tract, the tract has begun to expand and change in ways we never could have predicted—and, even more terrifying, parts of it have actually begun to fall to Earth, transforming the landscapes they encounter. Not far from Moneytown, in a neighborhood of underground clubs, body-modification chop shops, adolescent contract killers, and sexy streetwalking Monas, you’ll find the Saudade Event Site: a zone of strange geography, twisted physics, and frightening psychic onslaughts—not to mention the black and white cats that come pouring out at irregular intervals. Vic Serotonin is a “travel agent” into and out of Saudade. His latest client is a woman who’s nearly as unpredictable as the site itself—and maybe just as dangerous. She wants a tour just as a troubling new class of biological artifacts are leaving the site—living algorithms that are transforming the world outside in inexplicable and unsettling ways. Shadowed by a metaphysically inclined detective determined to shut his illegal operation down, Vic must make sense of a universe rapidly veering toward a virulent and viral form of chaos…and a humanity almost lost.

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.

Rogue Moon

Author: Algis Budrys
Publisher: Gollancz
ISBN: 9780575108004
Category : Interplanetary voyages
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
All his life, Al Barker has toyed with death. So when the US lunar programme needs a volunteer to penetrate a murderous labyrinth, alien to all human comprehension, Barker's the man to do it. But what is required of Barker is that he withstand the trauma of dying, not just once, but time and time and time again.

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