The definitive collection of Soviet SF was Macmillan's 'Best of Soviet Science Fiction', published in the early 1980s. It comprised a mix of novels (by the Str

The definitive collection of Soviet SF was Macmillan's 'Best of Soviet Science Fiction', published in the early 1980s. It comprised a mix of novels (by the Strugatskys, among others), and short story collections. I count a significant number of these as being among the finest SF I've yet come across. Many envelope the reader in an air of melancholy; very Bradburyesque. Here's a description of one of the notable authors, from "World's Spring", edited by Vladimir Gakov: "Genrikh Altov is one of the most interesting portraits in the gallery of Soviet science fiction writers. An engineer and inventor who holds several dozen patents; the creator of a new science on which special courses are now being given in educational institutions in the USSR, 'The Theory of Invention,' and the author of several monographs in this field; an SF fan and the author of the unparalleled (I vote for a special Hugo Award!) Altov's Register - a catalog of themes, plots, hypotheses, ideas, situations, etc., containing hundreds of thousands of processed bits of information. (The dream of the SF writer: an idea comes to you, so you check it out in the Register to see if it has been used before; if the idea has been 'copyrighted' by another writer, it's no great problem, because the Register contains open cells, the descriptions of still-unused sf ideas and situations.) A theoretician of the sf genre; the author of profound articles tracing the sf predictions of Wells, Verne, Alexander Beliaev... A teacher at a scientific research institute teaching young inventors to develop their imaginations, their ability not to be afraid of 'crazy' ideas..." There's also a stunning novel in the series: "Self Discovery", by Vladimir Savchenko. It has a completely convincing description of a biological computer AI. And then, this: "I would like to study the question of the untapped resources of man's organism. For example, the obsolescent functions, like our common ancestor's ability to leap from tree to tree or to sleep in the branches. Now that is no longer necessary, but the cells are still there. Or take the 'goosebump' phenomenon - it happens on skin that has almost no hair now. It is created by a vast nervous network. Perhaps these old reflexes can be restructured, re-programmed to meet new needs?" (In Theodore Sturgeon's words: "What an astonishing, what an exciting concept!") Best of all, that book is freely available online: http://www.lib.ru/RUFANT/SAWCHENKO/savchenko_selfdiscovery_ok-engl.txt http://www.lib.ru/RUFANT/SAWCHENKO/savchenko_selfdiscovery_o...