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I feel there aught to be a thread about their works. IMO almost everything they wrote is worth a read, except earliest books which are kind of bland scy-fi while they find their writer legs. Everything else is quite philosophical and I would even describe as wise. One thing specifically that I wanted to talk about is their "progressor" novels. In Strugatsky fandom they are set in Noon world. Which is glorious future communist Earth where everything is good. It is a bunch of their books that are tied thematically to the concept of "progression". Imagine an earth where gay space communism is finally established and humanity travels the universe. What do you do when you encounter a more primitive civilization where people toil in an unjust society such as feudalism for example. Compassion and humanity dictate that you aught to help them somehow to reach space communism as well, while avoiding civilizational pitfalls such as self-destructive nuclear war. Their novel "It's hard to be a god" is the first in these series, it is about an earth's agent inserted into a feudal civilization who with his co-conspirators work on their master plan until having to deal with results of their hubris. The second one is "Inhabited island" is about a space explorer Maxim Kammerer who becomes stranded on a planet which is vaguely 20-th centuryish, run by cruel dictators and a red-blooded broad-shouldered space communist endeavors to right the wrongs and fix injustices until it it turns out that one of the cruel tyrants he wishes to destroy is an Earth's progressor who is already hard at work helping this planet and Maxim is sowing chaos where there was a plan Now we get to the important part. Isn't it colonialist as gently caress to "improve" other civilizations? This is almost white man's burden to "progress" them to join Earth's utopia as communist friends. Although system of government in Noon world is more of a technocracy rather than communism, they are run by World Council which is made of philosophers and scientists. Since this point further novels set in Noon take a much more jaded turn. It becomes apparent that COMCON (COMmission for CONtact, progressors) agents are not super respected back on Earth. Unlike esteemed professions such as doctor, scientist, teacher or even gardener who all contribute to society, they are seen as James Bond impersonator for the thrills, even being space explorer after a certain age is seen as childish you are expected to learn a more useful profession. Things take an even darker turn in further novels (Beetle In Ant's nest and The Waves Extinguish The Wind). IMO it is Strugatski's apology for colonialist thought in previous novels, Maxim Kammerer of Inhabited Island is now an agent of COMCON-2 a tiny secret clandestine agency which is tasked with great reluctance by the World Council to investigate and prevent any attempts by even more advanced civilization to "progress" Earth. Chief of COMCON-2 is a member of the council. See the enormous hypocrisy here? Maxim goes from fucken Captain America to a overweight bureaucrat with license to kill which he never uses and his boss uses exactly once full of constant self-doubt and a target of disdain by his intervewees for being a government spook instead of, you know, doing something good. The reasons why Maxim is full of self-doubt? 1. The signs are extremely vague, which makes sense if more advanced civilization is involved, surely they have means to make things not apparent. Just like Earth does with their progressees 2. Perhaps the things they are trying to prevent are actually AMAZING and they are totally in the wrong for trying to stop them Other weird things are going on meanwhile, Golovan - the only alien civilization that humans had proper diplomatic relations with, close their embassy on Earth and expel human diplomats without any explanation. Alien stuff is also cool as gently caress, for instance contact with Slimes of Garrot failed because the slimes are convinced that humans are product of their imagination. And there are of course the Strangers, hypothetical civilization that was never proven to exist but which COMCON-2 battles with all their might. I wrote a whole bunch of stuff about Noon and progressors but they are not even my favourite novels. They wrote a lot and everything written after 1964 including Hard to be a god is worth reading. If you are exhausted figuring out which modern writer is worthy and who is Rowling wannabe, read Strugatsky brothers, they are proven to be good. Sekenr fucked around with this message at 17:11 on Sep 9, 2023 |
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Sep 9, 2023 17:03
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Here is the thread from when Roadside Picnic was BotM https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3879032 I have also read a couple of their short stories in a collection of Soviet scifi short stories. Its good stuff
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Sep 9, 2023 17:08
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The thing about Roadside Picnic is that it became famous in the west for who knows what reasons, maybe STALKER games. But it is a minor work, it is a novella while there are proper books and even series of books.
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Sep 9, 2023 17:14
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ok
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Sep 9, 2023 22:35
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Sekenr posted:The thing about Roadside Picnic is that it became famous in the west for who knows what reasons, maybe STALKER games. But it is a minor work, it is a novella while there are proper books and even series of books. It also got adapted by a pretty famous director.
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Sep 10, 2023 15:17
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