The noon universe is a thoroughly depressing set of books. Most of the plot invariably occurs not in the ideal Noon society, but in one or another form of rece

The noon universe is a thoroughly depressing set of books. Most of the plot invariably occurs not in the ideal Noon society, but in one or another form of recent/current dystopia: the totalitarian state of Inhabited Island's Saraksh, the feudalist gulag of EN-7031 in Escape Attempt, Arkanar's descent into a fascist police state in Hard to be God... Over and over, the ideal humans from future-earth hold up a twisted mirror to our own life as they try to engage and help but discover there are no good answers - at best, they don't make things any worse; but often they fail in even that much. Monday begins on Saturday is a much more upbeat story that's actually about people who are better than who we are right now, in an environment that lets them thrive; and you do need both those components for a utopia - contrast with A Thousand Years 'till the End of the World, which has people of similar character (or better; they overcome challenges of a difficulty that Monday begins on Saturday never presents its cast with in the first place) but in an antagonistic environment, and is again super depressing. While Watts expands horrors we are used to to new lengths, the Strugatsky brothers are out to show that even ideally moral superhumans can't save us from ourselves.