8 ms·
Can you share some examples of Soviet SF? Should be quite exciting.
by calimoro78 3y ago
Can you share some examples of Soviet SF? Should be quite exciting.
- AdamH12113 3y ago"Roadside Picnic" is a well-known novel that was the basis for the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series of video games. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roadside_Picnic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roadside_Picnic
- UtopiaPunk 3y agoI read Roadside Picnic a few months ago, and yeah, it's very good stuff. While there's a lot to be said for the context in which it was written, I think it also holds up on its own even if you're not very familiar with the history.
- narrator 3y agoRoadside picnic is so ridiculously melancholy. Everyone in that book is so depressed! I also don't think I've ever seen so much smoking and drinking in a sci-fi book. You could tell the brothers were really not enjoying communism.
- devindotcom 3y agoNow watch the film adaptation, Stalker - even more depressing!
- the_af 3y agoThe novel itself and the setting are not about communism though, not even in disguise. It would have to be in disguise because the setting is an unnamed North American (possibly Canadian?) city, but even if it was, the themes are not about communism. Agreed about the melancholy.
- pjc50 3y agoYes, that's Russian literature. Even before communism the melancholy is strong.
- SideburnsOfDoom 3y agoTry their other book, "The Doomed City". it's as upbeat as the title suggests.
- throw1234651234 3y ago"It's Hard to be God"
- tetris11 3y agoArkady and Boris Strugatsky were pretty prolific during this time (often writing in secret, and reciting their works only to trusted friends). "The Doomed City" is one of the best pieces of philosophical scifi I've ever read: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Doomed_City https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Doomed_City
- er4hn 3y agoThe Doomed City is a bad example since it was specifically released in a post-soviet era. It had very direct criticisms of communism which lead to the authors deciding to not release it during the soviet era they wrote it. "Hard to be a God", mentioned below, is a better example. Soviet era Sci-Fi where Star Trek esque space communists try to uplift a medieval society into modern political belief before establishing official first contact.
- thriftwy 3y agoThe Doomed City is way deeper than "criticisms of communism". People literally wake up in The Doomed City when the pandemic has started in 2020, for example.
- elgenie 3y agoTechnically, 'The Doomed City' was released in Soviet times, not in the post-Soviet one, as a result of Glasnost'/Perestroika. It was published in serialized form in "Neva" magazine in '88-'89, then in book form, while the USSR would still be a going concern for a couple more years.
- pigscantfly 3y ago"The Dead Mountaineer's Inn" is a fairly unique sci-fi noir also from the Strugatsky brothers that was my first introduction to their work. It interested me enough that I read all their other books afterwards -- worth checking out! 1. https://www.npr.org/2015/03/19/392634682/mountaineer-is-a-must-read-of-soviet-sci-fi https://www.npr.org/2015/03/19/392634682/mountaineer-is-a-mu...
- karaterobot 3y agoErr, that's just a regular detective novel, no SF elements at all, you must be mistaken (nudge nudge)
- Mikhail_Edoshin 3y agoFor specifically Soviet look for Ivan Yefremov, "The Bull's Hour". Other interesting authors could be Genrich Altov and Sever Gansovsky.
- jvb1000 3y agoKurt Vonnegut was accused once of ripping off George Orwell's 1984 with Player Piano. He responded by saying that he and Orwell had both just ripped off Yevgeny Zamyatin's We. Yevgeny Zamyatin was a Soviet author who ran afoul of Stalin and wrote We inspired by his perspective of the revolution.
- thriftwy 3y agoI saw a We play a year back, and it was highly contemporary with its office-style glass walls, mixed-use spaces and complex rituals around dating.
- jvb1000 3y agoThat's probably a testament to the criticism. Interesting that what Yevgeny Zamyatin presents as a clear, almost too on the nose dystopian satire has been repackaged as a desirable work environment.
- jvb1000 3y agoFor those not aware, despite it seeming highly contemporary, the first English translation of the book was published in 1924.
- winrid 3y agoThe Inhabited Island is an amazing book with a great ending. SF, government conflict/war, weird and fun machinery, etc. Others are suggesting Hard to Be a God by the same authors, which is an okay book, but it's not really SF as most people think of SF IMO.
- allarm 3y ago> it's not really SF as most people think of SF As well as the Roadside picknick, the Doomed city, A billion years before the end of the world, the Ugly swans, etc etc - really most of their books - it’s a good literature and not a sf in its usual sense.
- CuriousCosmic 3y agoOne example would be "The Invincible" by Stanisław Lem [1]. Worth noting that a video game [2] based on the novel (which looks very well produced) is releasing in November. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Invincible https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Invincible 2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yo7Ca6kXz08 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yo7Ca6kXz08
- troupo 3y agoLem's Invincible, Solaris and Eden form a trilogy of "what if we meet a civilization so alien to humans that we can't establish a contact with them"
- oceanofsolaris 3y agoAlso „Fiasco“, which is depressing and great. For a more recent take on a similar theme, see also „Blindsight“ by Peter Watts.
- inkcapmushroom 3y agoHere is Blindsight, free to read online from the author (and with PDF/ePub versions): https://rifters.com/real/Blindsight.htm https://rifters.com/real/Blindsight.htm
- totetsu 3y ago"the heart of a dog" is quite a good example of sci-fi as social critique https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heart_of_a_Dog_(1988_film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heart_of_a_Dog_(1988_film)