4 ms·

How much is their work really known outside Eastern Europe? I lived on outskirts of the SSSR cultural influence (in Yugoslavia), but their books were mostly unk

by ivanhoe 11y ago

How much is their work really known outside Eastern Europe? I lived on outskirts of the SSSR cultural influence (in Yugoslavia), but their books were mostly unknown to us. I discovered them as a kid by a pure chance. I was in a city library, bored (no Internet back then), and had no idea which book to rent... and the title "Hard to be a God" caught my eye. Story seemed interesting enough and it was marked as sci-fi, so I got it to see if it's any good. And well, yes it was, very good, one of my fav books to this day, in matter of fact.

jedmeyers 11y ago
Many of the ex-USSR software engineers have read and adore "Monday Begins on Saturday" which is a humorous and satirical story about a programmer working for the Scientific Research Institute of Sorcery and Wizardry. It was written in 1965 when the whole 'programmer' concept was unknown to the majority of population, but that's an altogether different story.
stewbrew 11y ago
In German, some of their novels were published by a major publisher, Suhrkamp. The movie Stalker is well known, which is based on one of their novels. I'd say they probably were the most prominent USSR SF writers of their time.
- itsuart 11y ago
  Yes, they were. Many latter generation writers call them Teachers. Yes with capital T.
- timnic 11y ago
  I just noticed in the article the passage from "The Dead Mountaineer’s Inn" ("Haven’t you ever noticed how much more interesting the unknown is than the known?") which is missing in the german translation from "edition wunschmaschine". I did a rough comparison based on the amazon preview of the english translation and found some other paragraphs missing in the german translation. This specific german translation was licensed from the former GDR publishing company "Verlag Volk & Welt".
levosmetalo 11y ago
During the early 2000 I was twenty something working as programmer, when one retired military guy joined the company as DBA. We discussed science fiction, I was fond of Clark, and he mentioned Strugatsky brothers. I started reading it, "It's hard to be a god" was my first book. Then I got swallowed. After that I read "Tachmasib", "Snail on a Slope", "Small boy", "Waves calm down the Wind", "Roadside Picknick", "Dead alpinist Inn", ... [1], basically everything I could find. Reading them leaves so much space and clues for imagination. After every their book my imagination would continue to wander through the universe described in their book. That's one of the reasons I didn't want to watch a movie based on the Roadside Picknick. I just didn't want to spoil the world of imagination in my head by watching a movie with someone elses imagined world. Now, they are my favourite science fiction authors, and I'm really sad that not all of their work was translated to a language I can read. [1] These book might have different English translation. This is just my half-assed translation from my native language.

by ivanhoe 11y ago

jedmeyers 11y ago

Many of the ex-USSR software engineers have read and adore "Monday Begins on Saturday" which is a humorous and satirical story about a programmer working for the Scientific Research Institute of Sorcery and Wizardry. It was written in 1965 when the whole 'programmer' concept was unknown to the majority of population, but that's an altogether different story.

stewbrew 11y ago

In German, some of their novels were published by a major publisher, Suhrkamp. The movie Stalker is well known, which is based on one of their novels. I'd say they probably were the most prominent USSR SF writers of their time.

itsuart 11y ago
Yes, they were. Many latter generation writers call them Teachers. Yes with capital T.
timnic 11y ago
I just noticed in the article the passage from "The Dead Mountaineer’s Inn" ("Haven’t you ever noticed how much more interesting the unknown is than the known?") which is missing in the german translation from "edition wunschmaschine". I did a rough comparison based on the amazon preview of the english translation and found some other paragraphs missing in the german translation. This specific german translation was licensed from the former GDR publishing company "Verlag Volk & Welt".

levosmetalo 11y ago

During the early 2000 I was twenty something working as programmer, when one retired military guy joined the company as DBA. We discussed science fiction, I was fond of Clark, and he mentioned Strugatsky brothers. I started reading it, "It's hard to be a god" was my first book. Then I got swallowed. After that I read "Tachmasib", "Snail on a Slope", "Small boy", "Waves calm down the Wind", "Roadside Picknick", "Dead alpinist Inn", ... [1], basically everything I could find. Reading them leaves so much space and clues for imagination. After every their book my imagination would continue to wander through the universe described in their book. That's one of the reasons I didn't want to watch a movie based on the Roadside Picknick. I just didn't want to spoil the world of imagination in my head by watching a movie with someone elses imagined world. Now, they are my favourite science fiction authors, and I'm really sad that not all of their work was translated to a language I can read. [1] These book might have different English translation. This is just my half-assed translation from my native language.