The Strugatsky brothers, whose books are known and loved not only in our country, but throughout the world, are Soviet writers who created the best examples of Russian science fiction. Many of their novels have been filmed. A whole generation of authors working in the genre of science fiction and fantasy looked up to them. Today they do not lose their popularity. If you want to touch the history of the formation of this genre in Russia, then you should get acquainted with such writers as the Strugatsky brothers; books, a list of which you can find on the website and which have become almost a legend, are a must-read.
The Strugatsky brothers: biography of a creative duo
The Strugatsky brothers, whose biography is no less interesting than their books, were born in Moscow and Leningrad. The first literary experiments of A.N. Strugatsky were undertaken before the war, but his stories were not preserved due to the siege of Leningrad. Therefore, the first work is considered to be the story “How Kant Died,” written by Arkady. Boris began to compose his stories a little later - in the sixties. The brothers' joint book was published in 1959 and was called "The Country of Crimson Clouds."
The work of these writers has always reflected their ever-changing worldview. This is probably why their works are so diverse. Drawing the worlds of the future, they filled them with the best people. Optimism and faith in progress are one of the hallmarks of the Strugatskys' early works. Their novels fully met the requirements of socialist realism, but the authors avoided typical characters and clichéd plots. At the center of their novels are humanists and intellectuals, responsible people devoted to science. By and large, the brothers' novels were replete with original plot twists and bold techniques, which distinguished them favorably from other writers of a similar genre of that time. They also did not neglect the opportunity to expose the vices of society. Among their works are many satirical novels that ridiculed the problems of Soviet life.
The Strugatsky brothers: books on the KnigoPoisk website
If you are interested in the Strugatsky brothers, you can find the best books in this section. This rating is based on reviews from our users, so you can easily choose a novel from which to begin your acquaintance with the works of famous writers. Read with pleasure!
1 1 0
Director of NIICHAVO. One in two persons. An administrator slowly becoming a great scientist. Has a habit of starting a conversation with the word: “So.”
0 0 0
Projectionist NIICHAVO.
4 4 0
Born in 1938, Russian, member of the Komsomol. Wear glasses. When we first met him, he was wearing a gray GDR jacket and jeans striped with lightning. Smokes. Drives a car. At NIICHAVO he holds the position of head of the computer laboratory. Lives in the institute's dormitory. Shares a room with Viktor Korneev. While working at the institute, I grew a beard. At the time of the events described, he was not married.
0 3 0
Specialist in nuclear-powered transport vehicles, who worked for many years in the Gobi Desert. Receives an offer to participate in the planned expedition to Venus, agrees and becomes a member of the crew of the experimental photon planetary spacecraft “Hius-2”. After the expedition, he returns to Earth and enters the Higher School of Cosmogation. He goes from a transport specialist to a famous captain of interplanetary spaceships. One of the main characters in the story “The Country of Crimson Clouds” and other works of the “pre-noon” cycle.
0 0 0
An underground worker, a former psychiatrist professor, a former prisoner, repressed by the regime.
0 0 0
Authorized agent of the Bureau of Emigration. He agitated Harmont residents to leave the vicinity of the Zone.
0 0 0
Freed Ghoul. Caretaker of the vivarium NIICHAVO.
0 0 0
Secretary and mistress of A.M. Voronina.
1 0 0
Doctor of Science, professor. Scientific consultant of Troika. He cuts his hair into a bowl cut so that no one can see his ears.
0 0 0
“A short, slender man, very pale and completely gray-haired, although judging by his face, thin, with clear, regular features, he could not be given more than thirty-five years old.” Commander of the planetary spaceship "Hius" and head of the first expedition to Venus in search of the "Uranium Golconda".
0 0 0
Scavenger, policeman, editor, senator, participant in Operation Zigzag; in real life - a stellar astronomer.
1 0 0
School friend of Anton and Pashka.
0 1 0
Revolutionary and professional rebel, leader of many uprisings. Previously, he was rescued by Rumata using a helicopter. One of the few who know Anton's real identity.
1 0 1
Son of Burbridge the Vulture. Was “begged” by dad from the Golden Ball.
2 1 0
Friend of Don Rumata. His full name is Pampa don Bau no Suruga no Gatta no Arkanara. A wealthy aristocrat from the provinces.
0 0 0
Worker in the glove compartment by Richard G. Noonan.
1 2 0
One of the heroes of the story "The Country of Crimson Clouds".
Pilot, one of the best astronauts in the world. Participant of the first expeditions to the asteroid belt.
0 0 0
The head of all criminal forces across the Strait. He collaborated with both Don Rumata and Don Reba.
0 0 0
Janitor in the City.
3 3 0
Employee of the Department of Universal Transformations. Master. "Hefty fellow." "Rude". Lives in the institute's dormitory. Shares a room with Alexander Privalov.
1 2 0
Employee of the Inaccessible Problems Department. Works in the laboratory of Roman Oira-Oira. Master. A native of the city of Murmansk. Red-bearded, without mustache. Smokes.
2 6 0
"A remarkable geologist and experienced interplanetary traveler." The hero of the works of the "forenoon" cycle. Planetologist. Bykov's friend.
0 0 0
Senior member of the null transport testing team.
0 1 0
The main character of the Strugatsky brothers' story "The Guy from the Underworld", a resident of the planet Giganda, a third-year cadet of the "School of Fighting Cats" - a military school located in the capital of the Alay Duchy, training special forces soldiers.
5 1 0
One of the heroes of the story "Inhabited Island".
Private of the Battle Guard on Saraksh.
0 0 0
Born in 2104. While studying at the Anyuda boarding school in 2118, he planned a flight to Venus together with his friends: Mikhail Sidorov (Atos), Pol Gnedykh and Alexander Kostylin (Lin), but Teacher Tenin revealed their plan in time. Received a Doctor of Science degree in xenopsychology. In 2133 he was the head of the expedition to Leonida, which established the first contact with the Leonidians. However, having discovered the first signs of intelligent life on the planet, Komov decided to immediately leave the planet and provided the opportunity to establish contact with COMCON workers. Around 2162, he became the head of COMCON, and personally coordinated the project “Golovans in Space.” Participated in the "Big Revelation". In 2199, together with Leonid Gorbovsky, he represented people in negotiations with the people.
0 0 0
Professional boxer in real life, advisor to the President of the Glass House.
0 0 0
Real name is Digga. Senior mentor, officer. The commander of the unit in which Gag serves. Features in the story "The Guy from the Underworld".
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Bug. Inhabitant of the Colony of Unexplained Phenomena at NIICHAVO.
0 0 0
One of the heroes of the story "Inhabited Island".
One of the highest officials of the regime of the Unknown Fathers, the head of the justice system, weaving intrigues against the Traveler.
0 2 0
One of the heroes of the story "The Country of Crimson Clouds".
Bykov's friend, a geologist, had previously worked on expeditions with Bykov, a participant in the first flight to Venus in search of the semi-mythical "Uranium Golconda".
0 0 0
Found in the story "Trainees".
Son of Alexey Bykov.
0 3 0
Red Shewhart's wife and the object of his constant concern.
0 0 0
Negro, Red's friend, coordinator of the Militant Angels society.
0 0 0
Orderly of Colonel St. James, participant in Operation Zigzag.
0 0 0
A young man from Giganda who is interested in mathematics. Civil. Pacifist. The hero of the story "The Guy from the Underworld".
Arkady Strugatsky, the eldest of the famous tandem, was born in Batumi on August 28, 1925. The brothers' parents were prominent representatives of the creative intelligentsia: their mother was a teacher, and their father was an art critic. In Leningrad, eight years later (April 15, 1933), Boris was born - the second half of the creative unit "The Strugatsky Brothers".
Each of them made samples of the pen separately. The first story of young Arkady, alas, was lost during the blockade. The story entitled “How Kang Died,” which was written in 1946, was published only in 2001.
By the 50s, Boris also became involved in literary exercises, but the brothers achieved their most impressive successes as co-authors. Their first common story, entitled “From the Outside,” was published in the magazine “Technology for Youth” in 1958. Later this work was developed to the scale of a story.
Started as a bet with the wife of Arkady Strugatsky, the brothers’ first serious joint book was published in 1959 - “The Country of Crimson Clouds.” The co-authors form their own style, and a recognizable, characteristic theme of their work appears.
It would take a long time to list the iconic works of the Strugatskys that had an incredible influence on the minds of their contemporaries and descendants. Among them is “Predatory Things of the Century,” which in 1965 expressively showed the choice between a very bad and a bad option. And Monday Begins on Saturday, the book that inspired the movie The Magicians.
Enormous success with the audience did not provide the Strugatskys with a comfortable life: Soviet censorship began to infringe on them, and in the 70s the path to print became practically closed for them. For “The Tale of Troika,” the Angara magazine was closed, “Snail on the Slope” was not allowed to be published, and the censors made almost a thousand edits to the original text of “The Inhabited Island.”
“Roadside Picnic” was also badly crippled by the censors, based on which the brothers later created the script for the film “Stalker” by Tarkovsky. The composition of “Lame of Fate” is very interesting - a very autobiographical book, the main character of which even received as a gift the authorship of another masterpiece of the Strugatskys - the story “Ugly Swans”. In 1990, the Strugatskys' last play, "The Jews of the City of St. Petersburg," was published.
In 1991, Arkady dies, and Boris continues his writing activity under the pseudonym S. Vititsky - he creates two more wonderful books. On November 19, 2012, the second brother also died.
Arkady and Boris Strugatsky are famous Russian and Soviet prose writers, playwrights, co-author brothers, the undisputed leaders of Soviet science fiction over the past several decades, the most popular Russian science fiction writers abroad. They had an invaluable influence on the development of Soviet and world literature.
The books of the Strugatsky brothers made a kind of dialectical revolution and thereby laid the foundation for the emergence of new utopian traditions of science fiction.
The work of the Strugatsky brothers
The Strugatsky brothers were the main science fiction writers in the USSR for many years. Their diverse novels served as a mirror of the changing worldview of writers. Each published novel became an event that caused controversial and vibrant discussions.
Some critics considered the Strugatskys to be writers who knew how to endow the people of the future with the best features of their contemporaries. The main theme that can be seen in almost all the authors’ works is the theme of choice.
The best books by the Strugatsky brothers online:
Brief biography of the Strugatsky brothers
Arkady Natanovich Strugatsky was born in 1925 in Batumi, after which the family moved to Leningrad. In 1942, Arkady and his father were evacuated; among all the passengers in the carriage, only the boy miraculously survived. He was sent to the city of Tashl, where he worked in the distribution of milk, and then was called up to the front.
He received his education at art school, but in the spring of 1943, shortly before graduation, he was sent to Moscow, where he continued his studies at the Military Institute of Foreign Languages. In 1949 he received a diploma as a translator. Then he worked in his specialty, moving from one city to another. In 1955, he retired from service, began working at the Abstract Journal, and then got a job as an editor at Detgiz and Goslitizdat.
Boris Natanovich Strugatsky was born in 1933 in Leningrad, after the end of the war he returned to his homeland, where he graduated from the university with a degree in astronomy. At first he worked at the observatory, but in 1960 he began writing with his older brother.
Fame came to the brothers after the publication of their first science fiction stories. The Strugatskys' fiction differed from others primarily in its scientific nature and thoughtful psychological images of the characters. In their first works, they successfully used the method of constructing their own history of the future, which to this day will remain the basis for all science fiction writers.
Arkady Strugatsky, the eldest of the brothers, died in 1991. After the death of his brother, Boris Strugatsky continued to write and publish works under the pseudonym S. Vititsky. Having lived all his life in St. Petersburg, he died in 2012.
"It's hard to be a god." Probably the most famous of the Strugatsky brothers' novels.
The story of an earthling who became an “observer” on a planet stuck in the late Middle Ages, and forced “not to interfere” with what is happening, has already been filmed several times - but even the best film is not able to convey all the talent of the book on which it is based!..
The fantastic story “Monday Begins on Saturday” talks about modern science, about scientists and the fact that already in our time people are making the most seemingly fantastic discoveries and feats.
“Hell Boy” shows the doom of the dark forces of reaction.
This volume includes the classic work of the late period of creativity of the Strugatsky brothers - the novel "The Doomed City", a fascinating story of a handful of people from different countries and eras who agreed to participate in a strange experiment - and were transported to a mysterious city "outside of time and space", where very and very unusual things, sometimes funny, sometimes dangerous, and sometimes downright scary...
“Here are collected, probably, far from our most exciting stories. And, of course, not the most romantic and cheerful. And certainly not even the most popular. But on the other hand, they are the most beloved, the most valued, the most respected by the authors themselves. All the most “mature” and perfect,” if you will, what they managed to create over fifty years of work.
We had many collections. Very different. And excellent ones too. But, perhaps, there was not a single one that we would be proud of.
Let it be now."
Boris Strugatsky
1 Snail on the slope
2 Second Martian Invasion
4 Doomed City
5 A billion years before the end of the world
6 Burdened with Evil
7 The devil among people
8 Powerless of this world
Masterpiece of the Strugatsky brothers. A tough, endlessly fascinating and at the same time endlessly philosophical book.
Time passes... But the story of the mysterious Zone and the best of its stalkers - Red Shewhart - still worries and excites the reader.
"Snail on the Slope" The strangest, most controversial work in the rich creative heritage of the Strugatsky brothers. A work in which fantasy itself, “magical realism” and even some shades of psychedelia are intertwined into an amazingly talented original whole.
“Happiness for everyone, and let no one leave offended!” Significant words...
Masterpiece of the Strugatsky brothers.
A tough, endlessly fascinating and at the same time endlessly philosophical book.
Time is running…
But the story of the mysterious Zone and the best of its stalkers, Red Shewhart, still disturbs and excites the reader.
Arkady and Boris Strugatsky.
Monday starts on Saturday. A fairy tale for younger scientists.
1st edition 1965
“The laughter was darting between the floor and the ceiling, jumping from wall to wall like a huge colored ball.
The editors read “The Vanity Around the Sofa” - the first part of “Monday...”. It happened right away
after the release of the philosophical tragedy “It’s Hard to Be a God,” that’s why they laughed with relief:
The Strugatskys came to their senses, decided not to walk on the edge of a knife, but to do something fun and
safe. The writers finally allowed themselves to have fun from the heart..."
This is how one of the participants in its preparation describes the atmosphere that reigned around this story.
to "coming out".
The brilliant book of Russian science fiction writers is rightfully considered one of the pinnacles of their creativity. Having stood the test of time, filled with humor and kindness, the story of the everyday life of a fabulous research institute
will not leave any of the readers indifferent.
One fine evening, young programmer Alexander Privalov, returning from vacation, met two pleasant young people right in the middle of a dense forest. And falling under their charm, he went to work at a mysterious and prestigious research institute, where quitters and slackers are not tolerated, where enthusiasm and optimism rule, and fairy tales become reality.
Illustrations and cover by Evgeny Migunov.
Note:
The illustrations in this edition differ from those in subsequent reprints.
Happiness for a stalker just released from prison is to lead others to the Room. This time he leads the Professor (Grinko), a physicist researcher, and the Writer (Solonitsyn) in a creative and personal crisis. The three of them penetrate through the cordons into the Zone. The stalker leads the group carefully, in a roundabout way, probing the way with nuts. The phlegmatic Professor trusts him. The Skeptical Writer, on the contrary, behaves defiantly, and, it seems, does not really believe in the Zone and its “traps,” although the encounter with inexplicable phenomena somewhat convinces him. The characters' characters are revealed in their dialogues and monologues, in the Stalker's thoughts and dreams. The group passes the Zone and on the threshold of the Room it turns out that the Professor was carrying with him a small, 20-kiloton bomb, with which he intends to destroy the Room - a potential fulfillment of the wishes of any despot, psychopath, scoundrel. The shocked Stalker tries to stop the Professor with his fists. The writer believes that the Room still fulfills not beautiful, well-thought-out wishes, but subconscious, petty, shameful ones. (But, perhaps, there is no fulfillment of desires at all.) The professor ceases to understand “why then go to her at all,” unscrews and throws out the bomb. They are returning.
Several years ago, the books of the Strugatsky brothers were already published in electronic form and were freely distributed on the RuNet. Then the writers' heirs closed the library as a protest against piracy. And now they changed their minds and returned the texts to free access on the official website.
Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, or ABS, wrote excellent social science fiction - honest, straightforward. Their works have long been dismantled into quotes. Having read ABS, you can theatrically fall onto the sofa, screaming: “The noble don has been hit in the heel!”
The abbreviation ABS began the tradition of assigning abbreviations to each science fiction book. So PNS - “Monday begins on Saturday”, TBB - “It’s hard to be a god.”
Many literary scholars and simply enthusiastic people advise reading the Strugatskys in chronological order. Lifehacker recommends starting with any book from this list.
1 and 2. NIICHAVO cycle
- Fantasy, satire.
- Year of publication: 1965–1967.
- Place and time of action: Russia, 20th century.
- Reader age: any.
The cycle about the everyday life of employees of the Research Institute of Witchcraft and Wizardry has only one drawback: it consists of only two books. But it is from them that many discover the Strugatskys.
We also recommend that you start easy - with the story “Monday Begins on Saturday” and “The Tale of the Troika.” Scientific can be satirical. And the everyday life of scientists is exciting (even if in the end they have to fight not with science, but with bureaucracy).
3. It's hard to be a god
- Social fiction.
- Place and time of action: outside the Earth, distant future.
- Year of publication: 1964.
- Reader age: any.
This is no longer a laughing matter. The story “It's Hard to Be a God” is considered one of the iconic works of the Strugatskys - the very embodiment of social fiction. Imagine a distant planet stuck in the Middle Ages. Now send historians from our time to this planet and think about how they will help this society achieve a brighter future.
Now imagine that you are the most powerful on the planet and will survive when the world around you collapses. But despite all your strength, power and knowledge, which is ahead of your time, you cannot save everyone. Even the most beloved ones. What would win in you - human or social?
...we know and understand men (...), but none of us would dare to say that he knows and understands women. And children, for that matter! After all, children are, of course, the third special type of intelligent beings living on Earth.
Boris Strugatsky
By the way, this is one of the few books by the Strugatskys in which there is a leading female character - a rarity for ABS books.
4. Roadside Picnic
- Adventure fiction.
- Year of publication: 1972.
- Place and time of action: Earth, 21st century.
- Reader age: any.
A heavy, dark, pessimistic book. The scene is Earth after. People live a life in which mortal danger hangs over them every day, but everyone is so used to it that they take it as a routine.
What if the aliens aren't friendly humanoids or giant cockroaches out to destroy Orion's belt? What if anomalous Zones appear on your planet, into which everyone rushes? Dangerous. Scary. Deadly. But you can feel alive only by avoiding death.
That's right: a person needs money so that he never thinks about it.
Based on this story, Andrei Tarkovsky made the film “Stalker”. Based on it, the developers later released the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. video game series. And now American representatives of the film industry are making a series based on the story.
The book is no more than 180 pages. Read it before the release of the series to understand the gulf that separates modern commercial projects from the completely non-commercial Strugatskys.
5. The doomed city
- Social fiction.
- Place and time of action: another world, indefinite time.
- Year of publication: 1989.
- Reader age: adults.
Precisely doomed, not doomed. ABS named their novel after the painting by Nicholas Roerich, which struck them “with its dark beauty and the feeling of hopelessness that emanated from it.”
roerich-museum.org You agree to the experiment and go into an artificially created world. This time the alien is you. And around you is Babylon, crowded with the same people who have their own vices, knowledge and hidden motives. The world resembles an anthill, into which occasionally someone great pokes a stick to stir up movement. What happens when the experiment gets out of control? What if this is not the first experiment?
The Strugatsky brothers are excellent at combining complex socio-psychological motives and dynamic action in one work. Therefore, they are equally interesting to read for both a schoolchild and a professor of social psychology. But if you want to understand what the book is really about, grow up. And then take on “The Doomed City.”
