Author Appreciation: Arkady and Boris Strugatsky - the philosophers of societal change

Introduction

No author has influenced my reading habits, my thoughts, my belief system, my understanding of good and bad, and my understanding of what good prose is, as Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, known to the world as the Strugatsky Brothers. This Author Appreciation post covers briefly their biographies and their bibliography. Additionally, at the end I share my own thoughts on their work - general thoughts, as well as my reactions to some of their books.

TL;DR This post is verbose. If all you want is some pointers on where to start, here is a short list of books that have been translated into English and will all be excellent starting points/great reads.

• Hard to Be a God (1964) (adapted for screen x 2, published before you were born, standalone, but not hard mode): humans try to speed up the development of a medieval world on a newly discovered planet. Things take a grim turn.

• Monday Begins on Saturday (1965) (adapted for screen, published before you were born, non-western setting - hard mode, hopeful fantasy - hard mode): the Institute of Wizardry and Magic recruits a computer scientist to work on their newly acquired supercomputer.

• Roadside Picnic (1972) (adapded for screen/TV/video games, published before you were born, hopeful fantasy- hard mode, standalone - hard mode). Years after a momentous if minute visit of an alien civilization to Earth, a special group of people called Stalkers venture into the quarantined and dangerous Zone - the place where the aliens landed - to bring back alien tech. For one such Stalker, visiting the Zone becomes much more than just an adventure.

• The Ugly Swans (1975) (adapted for screen, published before you were born, protagonist is a writer - hard mode, standalone - hard mode). A writer exiled from the capital to his old hometown witnesses a modern re-enactment of the story of the ratcatcher of Hameln.

• Definitely Maybe (1977) (adapded for screen, published before you were born, standalone - hard mode, non-western setting -hard mode, takes place entirely within one city - in fact - entirely within one apartment building). Something or someone keeps preventing a physicist from concentrating on ground-breaking research. Things escalate when he realizes, he is not the only one in this situation.

• The Doomed City (written 1977, published 1988) (takes place in a single city - possibly hard mode, hopeful - hard mode, standalone - hard mode). A mysterious group offers to seemingly randomly selected people a chance to participate in an Experiment. Those who agree are transported into a City situated outside space and time, and are left to live their lives. We follow a group of the Experiment participants: a Soviet communist, a Soviet Jew, a Wermacht sergeant, a Chinese yard sweeper, and others as they cope with their lives and try to investigate the mysteries of the City.

Biography

Arkady and Boris Strugatsky were born eight years apart, Arkady in 1925, Boris in 1933. Their childhood/early adulthood was made different by the World War II. Arkady and their father evacuated from Leningrad, with Arkady being the sole survivor who reached the destination point - his father passed away during the trip. Arkady was drafted in the Army in 1943, and afterwards became a student in the Foreign Language Institute. He became a translator of English and Japanese. When the brothers started collaborating on writing sicence fiction, Arkady lived in Moscow. Boris stayed with his mother in Leningrad and survived the Leningrad Blockade. He remained in Leningrad/St. Petersburg for the rest of his life - studying astronomy in Leningrad State University, working at Pulkovo Observatory nearby, and becoming the Leningrad/St. Petersburg branch of the collective.

Arkady passed away in 1991. Boris survived him by 11 21 years during which, in addition to writing a couple of books, his main activity was working with the fans on documenting the work of the Strugatsky brothers - writing comments to the books, publishing letters and other documents, engaging the fandom in many other ways.

Books

The writing career of ABS (as the names of the brothers are abbreviated) started in mid-to-late 1950, and continued into the 21st century, although most of their well-known books were written between 1964 and 1989. They are primarily known as science fiction writers, whose books address societal issues of near future, and deal with questions of progress, technology and humanity. At the same time, their most famous book, Monday Begins on Saturday, and its sequel Tale of a Troika is fantasy.

World of Noon. A large number of books written by the brothers take place in the so called World of Noon, named after their 1962 book Noon. XXII Century. This book is a series of novellettes introducing a number of characters whose life and achievements ABS track throughout later books. The following novels take place in the World of Noon:

Prequels

1. Land of Crimson Clouds (1957) (not available in English?)

2. The Way to Amaltea/ Destination Amaltea (1960)

3. Space Apprentice (1962)

4. The Final Circle of Paradise (1965)

The first three books from the list above detail the adventures of a space crew on missions around the Solar System (and possibly beyond - I don’t quite remember). These books express very much the predominant - in the Soviet Union of those days - paradigm that humanity will conquer space, and Communism will prevail… The last book documents a visit of one of the crew members to a city overcome by an epidemic of a mystery drug, on an investigative mission to discover the origins of the drug. It has a different tone (and also fully takes place within a single city).

The prequels take place in 21st century. The actual World of Noon novels start with Noon. XXII Century and consist of the following:

1. Noon. XXII Century. (1962). As they study in the Space Academy a group of students get to dream about the future and how they might participate in shaping it. (as hopeful as it ever gets).

2. Escape Attempt. (1962). A mysterious guest joins two young space travellers on a trip to a newly discovered planet, on which a civilization is discovered. However, this civilization is committing the same atrocities as those seen in the 20th century World Wars.

3. Far Rainbow (1963). A large group of scientists and spacefarers based on the planet Rainbow has to escape a planet-destroying catastrophe.

4. Hard to be a God (1964). (see TL;DR)

5. Snail on the Slope (1966). One scientist yearns to visit the mysterious Forest on a distant planet, but is hampered by the bureaucracy of an Institute situated on the edge of the Forest, while another, crash-lands in the middle of the Forest and lives out his live among the natives. If you liked Southern Reach books, this one is for you

6. Prisoners of Power (1969). Maxim Kammerer, a young Progressor (trained to speed up the progress of civilizations humans encounter) crash-lands on a new planet and infiltrates the totalitarian civilization he encounters. Eventually he reaches to inner circle of power only to discover that things are not what he expected.

7. Space Mowgli (1971). On an interplanetary mission of a deserted planet, researchers discover a human boy.

8. The Kid from Hell (1974). A commando cadet from another planet is mortally wounded and saved by an Earth Progressor who takes him to Earth and attempts to re-educate him.

9. Beetle in the Anthill (1980). Maxim Kammerer, now an operative of the Earth agency trying to stop interference of alien civilizations with Earth, investigates a group of foundlings - people who were born from creches found on an abandoned planet. Maxim must decide if the people he is investigating pose danger to Earth, and this turns out to be a very complicated question.

10. Time Wanderers (1986). Written in a form of a collection of documents, this final novel of the Noon World documents the discovery and the exodus of “ludens”, a new species of “super-humans”.

Except for the last two books, each of the books in the series can be considered a standalone book in a shared universe. There are a lot of characters who show up in multiple books - either in person, or by virtue of name dropping. Each book concentrates on one important event from the history of the World of Noon. One of the key issues raised in the books relates to the notion of a Progressor. Once Earth discovered new civilizations at the significantly lower stages of development, it created the institute of Progressors - specialists who embedded into those civilizations and tried to speed up the progress. At the same time, throughout the books, the Earth scientists discover evidence of a much higher-level and much older civilization called The Wanderers. The traces of the Wanderers are found one way or another in most of the books of the series. At some point, some of the Earth Progressors ask the question “What if the Wanderers are playing the Progressor to the Earth?” This leads to the creation of Earth counter-intelligence organizations, and search for evidence of The Wanderers messing up with Earth. In the last two books, the paranoia concerning the possible interference comes to full light.

In addition to the Word of Noon, the Strugatsky Brothers wrote a number of standalone novels and a fantasy duology.

• Monday Starts On Saturday/Tale of the Troika. Some of the best humorous fantasy out there. As mentioned above, in the first book, a computer scientist is recruited by the Institute of Wizardry and Magic to work on their newly acquired supercomputer. The book consists of three tales: the first is a comedy of errors leading to the recruitment; in the second and the third, Alex Privalov, in his new role as the head of the Institute’s computing center gets a front-and-center view of the mysteries surrounding the work conducted in the institute. The second book trades the light irony and good natured humor of the first book for biting satire as the protagonists of the first book are trying to get through the jungle of Soviet-style bureaucracy personified by the horrible “Troika” consisting of four people.

• Roadside Picnic. See TL;DR. The story of a Stalker who stakes the well-being of his family on one last trip to the Zone, and who must face some serious moral dilemmas as he is approaching his goal.

• The Ugly Swans. See TL;DR. Victor Banev has been asked by the President of his country to spend some time in his hometown, reflecting on his transgressions. He is a failure of a father, and failure of a writer, and a failure of a human being. In his hometown, beset by the everlasting rain, school-age children are ignoring adults and are besotted by the “lepers”: mysterious denizens of a high-security “leper” colony protected by the highest echelons of the Army. Via a set of circumstances, Victor becomes entangled in the happenings in his town and eventually, he must make some choices about who he is as a human being.

• Dead Mountaineer’s Hotel. Their foray into sci-fi mystery genre, this standalone novel is a classic whodone mystery set in a remote Alpine hotel. There is just one twist to it - not all guests of the hotel are necessarily human.

• The Doomed City. See TL;DR. Stuck in a City outside space and time, and occasionally confronted by his Advisor, Sergey Voronin wants to turn the City into a shining example of the triumph of Communism. But instead each month he gets a random assignment - from a head of a department to a garbage man. He and his neighbors spend their evenings pondering the reasons behind the Experiment. When the time comes, they take matters in their hands… But whether they defeated the Experiment, or not is not clear, and requires understanding the mysteries of the City - something Voronin’s buddy Izya Katzman seems to be spending way too much time on, and possibly a trip to the very edge of the City - place no one has ever been able to reach.

• Overburdened with Evil. In their last joint work, the brothers tell the story of a Teacher and the sacrifices a Teacher must take in the name of his/her students. This story repeats twice: once as a story of Jesus Christ and the Apostles, and second time, as a story of a high-school teacher in a provincial Russian town.

Why Strugatskys?

Everything I wrote above is simply a restatement of facts. Allow me to briefly add a few observations of my own. Arkady and Boris Strugatsky did for Russian science fiction and fantasy more than Asimov and Tolkien did in combination for Western SFF. At the time when writing about anything other than the imminent victory of Communism was close to impossible, ABS found a way to write excellent, honest, and timeless books. It took them a while to find their stride: their early work is as cheerful and as Soviet-inspired as one can imagine. But somewhere around 1962-1964, with the emergence of Hard to Be a God, Escape Attempt, and - I guess, with the brothers’ emerging awareness of history of Soviet Union, the tone of their books shifted. Their best books, The Ugly Swans (my personal favorite), The Doomed City (their opus magnum, which they had to wait for over 10 years to publish), Definitely Maybe have truly timeless qualities. Each time I pick up these (and other) books, I discover something new, something I have not noticed before.

Throughout their career the Strugatsky brothers have developed a number of themes. Since 1960s, they had a very strong anti-totalitarian streak - something that they were able to cast as only applying to the Western world (anti-fascism), but, that in retrospect, is clearly an attempt to deal with the situation at home. They came up with the “who is watching the watchers” idea in 1960s too, and throughout their development of the World of Noon, they diverged from the “victory of Humanity” approach to “when do you draw the line on your self-induced paranoia”.

At the end of the day, I think it is fair to say two things. First, Arkady and Boris Strugatsky wrote beautiful prose. Even in translation one can clearly see their unique style, their phrasing, their inside jokes, their humor, and their pain.

Second, Arkady and Boris Strugatsky are excellent students of human nature. Not just “human nature” as the nature of an individual. They are also excellent students of the society. They understand what happens in groups of people when certain elements are introduced. Their stories are examples for tracking such societal processes, but like nowhere else, one is able to abstract from their work. Which is why it is easy to see that Monday Starts on Saturday is a slightly idealistic ode to people who are in love with their work. Which is why the totalitarian regime in The Ugly Swans is easily recognizable as today’s Russia (despite the fact that the book was written close to 40 years ago). Which is why a well-respected person crossing a moral event horizon (something that happens in Beetle in the Anthill) is also going to be a very recognizable situation. This is what the Strugatskys do. They make you recognize things from their books in your life.

And here, I sign off.