Exploring The World Of Russian Science Fiction Online

jimharris writes: "There is a vast heritage of science fiction in Russian that is as large and diverse as SF in English. This Russian site has several complete science fiction novels in English. If you go to their home page you will feel the language barrier. Most of these are out of print in the English speaking world, but many were translated and published in the seventies, and can be found through AddAll.Com. I have found one Russian Science Fiction club that tries to help the English speaking world understand Russian SF, and also gives their view on Heinlein and Philip K. Dick. Only Roadside Picnic by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky appear on the Classics of Science Fiction list. I have to wonder what far-out concepts I might be missing because I only understand English -- maybe the Internet will help break down this barrier."

Comments

Re:Cultural-Centric SF?

[GGardner]

I think you've got this the wrong way round.

Is Russian fiction (SF or otherwise) a product of its culture? Sure, but that's a reason to read it, not a reason to ignore it.

Chekhov said that only Russians could understand Russian lit. Perhaps only Russians can completely understand it, but that doesn't mean the rest of us should stop trying.

Re:a must read list?

[21mhz]

Yup, ABS are rad, especially their later books. The earlier ones may have too much of socialist naivete; the later ones are bitter and somewhat haunting. Roadside Picnic (the proto-story of Stalker the movie) and Lame Fortune (never translated into English, I believe) are the best IMHO. Monday Begins On Saturday is the Soviet equivalent of the HHGTTG: a geeks' delight.

Pelevin is not SF, at least not in the "science" category. But his fiction is curious and playful. Expect a lot of impenetrable jokes and references to things unfamiliar to you due to "cultural differences". You haven't heard all those funny stories about Chapaev and Petka, have you?

Another SF (this being "serious" fiction again, not "science") master is Vladimir Sorokin. Absolutely mindboggling stuff, being an excellent prose on its own.

Andrey Platonov, I think, is one of the most overlooked Russian writers of the 20th century. His stretches of Russian reality of 1920s-1930s are beautifully absurd and sarcastic -- think Kafka meets Ionesco meets Orwell.