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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."
check out: Sovlit
Like languages, environment define the terms you associate with life.
... Snow, SnowFall, Blizzard... whiteout...
:(
300 words for snow? Yup, if you are from the north. I think I have 5 or 6
What's this have to do with SF? Even if there is a perfect, idiom-perfect translation, we Americans may simply not have the cultural background to understand it. Or even do it the justice it deserves.
This is by no means a reason to stop trying- I frankly love SF and have a library rapidly approaching 1000 books... but until I bone up on my russian history, I am afraid these wonderful texts will fall short
Of course, a 'monologue' like the put down at the bottom of those ancient texts you studied in Latin class (you DID read the Aeneid, didn't you?) was more than enough to get the underlying meaning, giving you the cultural explanations of the references provided. Maybe thats what their SF needs to be complete.
Back 5 (or so) years ago Amazon.com brought the world of (english language) books to the internet, and many have claimed the events of Septerm ber 11th brought the world of internet based news put pf the shadpws into the mainstream. Non-English language literature however, has not seen it's internet coming-of-age.
Perhaps, however, this is a good thing, not that non-english language literature isn't as widely availble on the net, but the fact that it isn't suggests a continued focus on treditional puslishing for such literature.
Whatever your view on electronic puslishing (eBooks, etc...) you must agree that electronic pusblishing is transient. when 'sponsorship' for a publisged work dries up, that work simply would simply disappear. Gone will be the days of 200 year old books being discovered in the musty corner of some atic, many years in the future. If the qualkity of a published work isn't recognized within the lifetime of the author, the work may disappear without a trace, without a single printed and bound copy to be found. While it's true that media (which un-like a website, doesn't require sponsorship to exist) containing the work may exist for a few years after the death of the author, even that is transient. Organizations such as the Long Now Foundation are working to preserve the vast expanse of knowlege published on the internet, but without such organizations, works not published in a physical sense may be lost to time.
For this reason, it's somewhat heartening to see that not all publishing is moving to the internet, even though it may reduce the exposure of the works in question. Granted it's more desirable to gain the widest exposure in the shortest period of time such that the publisher can turn a proffit on works of literature but that proffit margin shouldn't be at the expense of future generations' access to the work.
--CTH
--Got Lists? | Top 95 Star Wars Line
300 words for snow? Yup, if you are from the north
Its an urban myth that eskimoes have 100+ words for Snow and the color white.
Help fight continental drift.
There is a lot of Russian books that are getting
published(OCR?) on the net, one thing I stubled on were real stories from Afganistan and Chechen Wars, they are incredible, told by real soldiers not writers. I only found one translated to English, but they're maybe more available.(I read them in Russian).
http://lib.ru/MEMUARY/CHECHNYA/chechen_war.txt
P.S. from SciFi I recomend brothers Strugatsky books, specificaly Roadside Picnic.
> So I guess Russian sci-fi .. includes .. the freedom of uncensored thought?
No, that is more modern American sci-fi, the freedom of publishing uncensored thoughts without fearing CMDA, being politically incorrect, trademark violations, etc.
MSDOS: 20+ years without remote hole in the default install
Well, we could Babelfish it, but I think it loses something in the translation.
this mirror should be faster for all living outside of russia.
Monday Begins on Saturday great and funny book, kinda douglas adams style
Hard to be a god same writers, much darker sf
The Master and Margarita kinda Faust in USSR, funny
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
I think Yevgeny Zamyatin's We is the best Russian SF I've ever read (and maybe the only Russian SF I've ever read, now that I think about it). Anyway, his metaphors are very mathematical (revolutions are like numbers, infinite; love is like the square root of -1; maybe he was a mathematician). Anyway, I highly recommend it.
A few lessons? What Canada are you living in? I took a mandatory 6 years of French. I appreciate it more now that I'm done though.
"If he thinks he can hide and run from the United States and our allies, he's sorely mistaken." Bush on bin Laden
I am really glad to see the unlikely break of microsoft-flaming and transmeta-worshipping programming schedule on slashdot - especially since it has to do with good books from Eastern-bloc countries. I wil second all recommendations already given for the Strugatsky brothers. Hwever, when I think of Russian sci-fi, the first name that actually comes to mind is Polish.
Stanilsaw Lem, a Polish author who is immensely popular in Russia and many European countries (but, alas, poorly known in the states) is, in my opinion, the most incredible sci-fi author I've ever had the privielege of reading. His books are above and beyond what is commonly referred to as "science fiction" by the people I meet. Lem's prevailing notion is that a laser gun on a spaceship does not make a rehashed soap opera plot into something that may be classified into the science fiction genre.
Lem's books go a full range from hillarious to serious to outright bizarre. His "Memoirs found in a bathtub" was Terry Gilliam's inspiration while the latter was shooting Brazil. Lem's "Solaris" has been made into an amazing movie by Russia's cinematography great Andrei Tarkovsky - and more likely than not, it is available in your local blockbuster or library. I can go on and on, but I figured that if you (the reader) have made it this far down this post, I might as well provide the links and let you figure out if that sounds like something you'd like to read for yourself. So,
Planet Solaris - The Official Lem site
A brief biography and overview of books
If you can read Russian, this contains the translations of the bulk of his work into Russian.
A really good fan site, with overviews of all major works
A short passage from The Cyberiad - one of Lem's most famous collections of short stories
List of Stanislaw Lem's books, sorted by average customer review rating, at amazon
Take care!
PsychoOne
And Stanislaw Lem, while Polish rather than Russian, has always been popular in Russia.
Danny.
I have written over 900 book reviews
I have an old Asimov edited collection called "More Soviet Science Fiction". One of the more striking elements was the "heading to the best of all possible worlds" feeling.
"Any thinking being from some other world that has been able to reach the Cosmos must be just as perfect and universal as the humans of our Earth, and hence just as beautiful. There can be no thinking monsters, no mushroom-men, no octopus-men! "
[...]
"You suggest that even if they look quite different from us, we may not think them ugly? But supposing they resemble us but have horns and elephant-like trunks?"
"A thinking being does not need horns and hence will not have them. The nose may be somewhat elongated to form a trunk, although a trunk too is unnecesary for a being with hands, and a human being must have hands [...]"
"You win"
The Heart of the Serpent, Ivan Yefremov...Subject: is the song that plays to awaken them from their cronosleep
It's kind of an interesting "hard scifi" story, the two groups end up learning how to communicate partially with an exchange of information about the Periodic Table (they breathe flourine instead of oxygen....other than that they're pretty much greyish star trek aliens, minus the ridges.)
At first I was going to write this in kind of a condescending way, but actually they're stuff holds up pretty well against ours, though it definately has trouble shaking towing the Soviet party line about a bright future through human social(ist) advancement.
SO YOU'RE GOING TO DIE: The Comic for Dealing with Death
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.
My exception safety is -fno-exceptions.
I'd love to start reading these stories, but I find it hard to sit and read off my monitor any large ammount of text. How do you all read books off the internet? Is there a way easier on the eyes? Printing them all out seems to be a little excessive.
(Yes I do have a 21in monitor, and would like something short of finding an english translation in book form.)
WikiAfterDark.com It's a sex wiki, go now!
While I do not completely appreciate the somewhat confrontational tone of this posting, I do feel that the decision I made to learn a foreign language is possibly the best decision I have ever made.
Here are just some of the benefits:
Any geek [1] skilled enough to learn, say, C and Perl and Python, has the ability to learn a foreign language--of course the words which break the "rules" of a human language are rather annoying (English example: "I read today" and "I read yesterday") compared to the elegance of a human language.
- Sam
[1] It is interesting that a word used to describe a sub-group of people is often considered a derogatory word by people outside the group; but it is not derogatory for people part of the group in question.
The secret to enjoying Slashdot is to realize that it should not be taken too seriously.
Asimov is my #1 choice in sci-fi reading for years.
I am sure there are probably many more awesome people from the country formerly known as the soviet Union that can write good Sci-fi. Too bad the site is slashdotted.... anyone have any good links to texts in english?
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Most American schools *require* two years of a foreign language to graduate from High School. Many Colleges and Universities require a further 2 years to obtain a degree.
However, if you look, probably 70% of those taking a second language in the U.S. take Spanish; about 25% take French leaving 5% to take something else -- in High School, anyway.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
Much of Lem's writing was veiled criticism of communist rule, masquerading as fiction. It may be hard for younger generations to truly appreciate the political environment in which he was writing, and the very real personal risk involved in writing anything more pointed than he did.
Like all the rest of High School, and most Colleges and Universities, students are only required to attend class -- not to learn anything.
actually there is an english version of rusf.ru.
Go on site (http://rusf.ru) and then select 'english' on a top right corner.
Among other things on there is a complete (Russian) version of Terry Pratchett's Soul Music. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought you were expected to pay good money for that sort of thing...
++ Say to Elrond "Hello.".
Elrond says "No.". Elrond gives you some lunch.
From ,
...aka "Guest from the Future" (1984) (mini)
...aka "Failure of Engineer Garin" (1973) (mini)
...aka Abdulladzhan, or Dedicated To Steven Spielberg (1991)
...aka Revolt of the Robots (1924)
...aka Aelita: Queen of Mars (1924)
...aka Magicians (1982) (TV)
...aka Invisible Man, The (1984)
...aka Per Aspera Ad Astra (1981)
...aka To the Stars By Hard Ways (1982) (US title)
...aka Humanoid Woman (1981)
...aka Trudno Byt Bogom (1989)
...aka Hard to Be a God (1989) [from the novel by the Strugatski brothers]
...aka Extraterrestrial Women, The (1984)
...aka Temptation of B. (1990)
...aka Curse of Snakes Valley (1988)
...aka Zaklyatie doliny zmei (1988) (Russian title)
...aka Madude oru needus (1988)
...aka Cry of a Dolphin (1986)
...aka Moscow - Cassiopea (1973)
...aka Battle Beyond the Sun (1962) (US title)
...aka Sky Calls, The (1959)
...aka Heavens Call, The (1959)
...aka Sky Is Calling, The (1959)
...aka Charming Aliens (1991)
...aka Teenagers in Space (1974)
...aka Boys In the Universe (1974)
...aka Planet of Storms (1962)
...aka Planet of Tempests (1962)
...aka Storm Planet (1962)
...aka Cosmonauts on Venus (1962)
...aka Kidnapping of a Wizard (1989)
...aka Adventures of the Electronic, The (1979) (TV)
...aka Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, The (1985)
...aka Secret of the Iron Door, The (1970)
...aka Phenomenon (1983)
...aka We Called Him Robert (1967)
...aka Testament of Professor Dowell (1984)
click on "Science Fiction", click on "Countries":
RUSSIA
A strong case can be made that Russian science fiction is second only to English-language science fiction in quality and quantity, and in many cases science fiction books sell in more copies in Russia than anywhere else. Whether or not the authors get paid is another story.
Of course, the American intelligence forces, with time-scanners, saw the impact of young Isaac Asimov, and covertly paid his family's way over to Brooklyn, New York, to keep Russia from taking over the SF world.
Russia beat America into space with Sputnik, the definitive event that showed the world that science fiction dreams of spaceflight were now
reality, and hammered home the point with the first man in space, Yuri Gagarin. Russian authors had created the fictions that led to this
reality.
1892 Konstantin Tsiolkovsky (1857-1935), the Father of Space Rocketry, publishes his first science fiction story "On the Moon" in a Moscow magazine
1895 Konstantin Tsiolkovsky (1857-1935), the Father of Space Rocketry, publishes his second science fiction story "Dreams of the Earth and the Sky and the Effects of Universal Gravitation" and describes in fiction an artificial satellite -- the predecessor of Sputnik, as it were
1895 A. N. Goncharov also publishes a satellite story "Fantasies of Earth and Sky" in Moscow
An important reference work on Russian SF is "Russian Science Fiction Novel" by Anatolij Britikov (Moscow: Nauka and the Soviet Academy of
Sciences, 1970).
I am going to add, soon, some notes on these particularly important Russian science fiction authors:
* A. Belayev
* M. A. Bulgakov
* Anatoly Dneprov
* Mikhail Emtsov
* I. Lukodianov
* Georgui Martinov
* V. A. Obruchev
* E. Parnov
* Victor Saparin, "The Trial of Tantalus"
* The Brothers Strugatsky (Arkadi and Boris)
* A. Tertz (A. D. Siniavskii)
* A. Tolstoi
* Konstantin Tsiolkovski (father of the Spaceship AND Rusian space fiction)
* Ilya Varshavsky
* I. A. Yefremov
* Evgeni Zamiatin
Filip Schils Abidjan, Ivory Coast, icq : 6951680 e-mailed on 2 June 1998 to say:
"I am familiar with the "Russian classics" re: Zamyatin, Jevgeni & Arkadi Strugatski. I think you could add Vassilli Akhsionov to your essay as he often uses "SF" settings and styles in his books. If I am not mistaken he has also a scientific education (doctor ?), his style is very experimental using poetry, song texts. He is a scion of the Thaw period and should surely have been mentioned by Yevtuchenko....I am very much interested in other links on Russian SF..."
Eugene Zamiatin (1884-Mar 1937) [Evgeni Ivanovich Zamiatin] Russian dystopian novelist, banned in the USSR, of the influential "We" (New York: Dutton, 1924, tr. by Gregory Zilboorg) which surely influenced George Orwell's "1984" -- a global state where people are denied names and love.
Important SF figures born in Russia who emigrated include:
* Boris Artzybasheff (25 May 1899-?) American artist born in Kharkov (Russia) and trained in St.Petersburg (1909-1918);
* Isaac Asimov
* Reginald Bretnor
* George Gamow (scientist/science writer)
* Ayn Rand
* many who recently emigrated to Israel (see entry on Israel)
Charles Angoff (1902-?), Russian-born American newpaperman, English professor, editor, author of fantasy anthology "Adventures in Heaven" (New York: Ackerman, 1945), nothing on the Web?
One Russian member of Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America:
* Alexander Korzhenevski
Russian SF book publishers include:
* Detgiz
* Mir
* Molodaja Gvardija
* Mysl
* Znanije
Important magazines include:
* Junost (circulation hit over 2,000,000)
* Nauka i zjisn
* Teknika-molodezji
* Sveta
* Vokrug Sveta (circulation almost 3,000,000)
* Znanije-Sila
32 Russian Science Fiction films/TV series include:
* The Amphibian Man (1962)
* "Gostya iz buduschego" (1984) (mini)TV Series
* "Krakh inzhenera Garina" (1973)(mini)TV Series
* Abdulladzhan, ili posvyaschayestya Stivenu Spilbergu (1991)
* Aelita (1924) a classic!
* Charodei (1982) (TV) very popular
* Chelovek-nevidimka (1984)
* Cherez ternii k zvezdam (1981)
* The Death Ray (1925)
* Es ist nicht leicht ein Gott zu sein (1989)
* I Was a Sputnik of the Sun (1958)
* Inoplanetyanka (1984)
* Iskusheniye B. (1990)
* Kin-Dza-Dza (1986) very popular
* Klatwa doliny wezy (1988)
* Krik delfina (1986)
* Moon Rainbow (1985)
* Moskva-Kassiopeya (1973)
* Nebo Zovet (1959)
* Ocharovatelnye prisheltsy (1991)
* Otroki vo Vselennoy (1974)
* Planeta Burg (1962)
* Pokhischeniye charodeya (1989)
* Priklyucheniya Elektronika (1979) (TV)
* Solaris (1972) classic, based on Staislaw Lem novel
* Stalker (1979)
* Strannaya istoriya doktora Dzhekila i mistera Haida (1985)
* Taina zheleznoi dveri (1970)
* Tretya planeta (1991)
* Unikum (1983)
* Yevo zvali Robert (1967)
* Zaveschaniye professora Dowelya (1984)
The story "The Blind Pilot" by Nathalie-Charles Henneberg, translated by
Damon Knight, appears (pp.250-265) in "The World Treasury of Science Fiction", edited by David G.
Hartwell, Boston: Little Brown, 1989 (and released by Book of the Month
Club).
Hartwell comments "Nathalie-Charles Henneberg, who is RUSSIAN, met her Alsatian-German husband in Syria when he was in the French Foreign Legion. They began writing SF in French in the 1950s, and until his death in 1959 they signed their collaborations with his name.... Nathalie went on to become a prolific novelist, the 'most read' French SF writer in France in the 1960s, according to [Damon] Knight. This story bears an
uncanny resemblance in atmosphere to the early works of the American writer Roger Zelazny, which it predates."
The story "I was the First to Find You" by Kirill Bulychev, translated by Helen Saltz Jacobson, appears (pp.690-700) in "The World Treasury of Science Fiction", edited by David G. Hartwell, Boston: Little Brown, 1989 (and released
by Book of the Month Club).
Hartwell comments "Among the most versatile and popular SF writers in the Soviet Union, Kirill Bulychev is one of a group of younger Soviet writers to emerge in the 1960s. Above all, his talent for storytelling and his interest in human characters interacting with SF problems make him a particularly effective representative of recent Soviet SF. The strain of utopianism remains strong in Eastern European SF and sinks many stories with didacticism, but Bulychev is able to sustain his delight in the wonders of the technological future, as in the days of [American
editor/author] John W. Campbell. And, of course, the influence of Campbell-style SF itself, in this case [A. E.] Van Vogt's 'Far Centaurus'
is clearly present."
I keep recommending these books to people I meet. It's wonderful literature; I keep saying it's literature, not deserving the restrictive label of "SF"; a good Strugatsky is the kind of book you don't fully appreciate until you have put it down, when its flavour lingers and you realize that, while reading it, your mind took flight, and that you're still flying a few days after.
It is sad, but not too surprising, to learn how unknown they are outside the literati (by which I don't mean the average Slashdot geek type with their Asimov and Trekkie stuff). The English translations are, as far as I can know, almost entirely out of print. Roadside Picnic was recently resurrected, at least in Europe, by Gollancz as part of their "Gollancz SF" series (instantly recognizable as trade-paperbacks with minimalistic yellow covers), a wonderful series which also includes other semi-forgotten masterpieces by the likes of Brunner, John Sladek, Heinlein, Thomas Disch and John Crowley.
Obtaining these absent volumes is not hard. ABE Books is your friend; basically it's a network of used-book sellers with a unified shopping cart -- it's an amazing system that has significantly added to my personal library. Books typically arrive by air mail within a week, even here in Europe (Norway). Also popular, but untested by me, is BookFinder.
There have been posts in this discussion, some serious and some not, about the readability/relevance of Russian fiction, comments pretty typical of ethnocentric Americans. I can't stress this enough: There is absolutely nothing that should prevent you from completely enjoying a Russian book (translated into English, to wit). The references to Russian culture/history/etc. are more or less nonexistent, and their stories are usually set outside the Soviet state. As for translations, most of the Strugatsky books were done by an extraordinary translator, Antonina W. Buois. I cannot vouch for their correctness, as I have not read the original texts, but I applaud their beauty, humanity, subtlety and ingenuity, qualities which I can only assume are also present in the originals.
As for what to read, I highly recommend Roadside Picnic, which is a masterpiece in any genre (it served as the inspiration for Tarkovsky's Stalker). It is about the aftermath of an alien visitation -- after the beings themselves have left and mysteriously, without having revealed themselves -- which has left the Earth riddled with small "Zones", contaminated by alien debris. One theme of the novel is that while we humans consider ourselves "rational beings", our sense of rationality -- a way of putting order to chaos -- is closely tied to our human form; an alien civilization may in fact appear beyond our capacity to understand, and therefore their nature will seem chaotic, irrational and impossible to us. The debris is wonderful stuff, often dangerous, often inexplicable, and humans scavenge it like ants over the trash left, as a character says, by a family "roadside picnic".
Their other works are similarly masterly: Far Rainbow, Hard to Be a God (actually made into a French-German-Russian-produced film in 1989) and Definitely Maybe. The latter's original title is, translated: "A Billion Years to the End of the World: A manuscript discovered under unusual circumstance". It tells the story of how one day all scientific progress is suddenly threatened by, well, hedonistic distractions. It was adapted into the film Days of the Eclipse (1988).
Many of the Strugatskys' books play out in the same "universe", or continuum, of the 22nd century, which includes several novels featuring intergalactic investigator Maxim Kammerer, and also developing the backstory of "the Wanderers", a mysterious, never-seen, incredibly powerful race of beings that seem to be silently following and manipulating the human race, similar to the Visitors in Roadside Picnic. The most chilling example is "Wanderers and Travellers", a hypnotic little short story about a diver who tags rare marine animals with radio tracking, and who then meets a man who suspects that, after a visit to a remote planet, he has somehow been... tagged himself.
On note: Alongside their SF production, the Strugatskys also produced some absurdist fables, including Tale of the Troika and The Second Invasion of Mars, and while this is great stuff, it's likely to shock and disappoint anyone looking for a "vintage Strugatsky".
IMNSHO the best current Russian fantasy writer is Nik Perumov. His books are not an average fantasy of Good vs Evil. But rather Dark Side vs Light Forces, with author siding with the Dark. It's either an exiled mage rising a rebellion against good benevolent Gods to save his imprisoned friend. Or a necromancer on a quest against the rest of the world. Noone is always good and noone is pure evil. Very good solid high paced reading. Very enjoyable. I don't know if he is translated to English though. He had one book in English with Alan Cole. Unfortunately that sorry piece of a crap is not worth the paper it's published on.
Another decent Russian writer is Sviatoslav Loginov - http://rusf.ru/english/loginov/ (in English). _Multiarm God of Dalayn_ is VERY original. I have not read anything like that either in English or Russian. It might be too original though. _Black Blood_ with Nik Perumov is very good. He also writes "village fantasy" which might be too thick with Russian culture and closer to common fiction than to fantasy.
One of the older writers is Kir Bulychev. Some of his writing is space sci fi, some is social sci fi set in a fictional Russian town "Veliky Gusliar". Mostly targeted to younger readers.
Brothers Strugatski are classics of Russian sci fi. Their earlier books are mostly space sci fi. Like _It's Hard to Be a God_ is about human outpost on a medieval planet. _Beetle in an Anthill_ is very original alien planet fiction. _Stalker_ is good reading. The _Monday Starts on Saturday_ is about government research facility studying magic (fun reading - government bureaucracy + magic). The later books tend to be more philosophical and are thick with Russian historical and cultural references.
A lot of people like Sergey Lukyanenko. He is probably the best selling contemporary Russian sci fi writer. Another popular writer is Vladimir Vasil'ev - sci fi, fantasy, cyber, alternative history. I did not read a lot of them, so I won't comment.
_Master and Margarita_ was written in the first half on 20th century. Classic translated to many languages including English. Satan come to Moscow. Very philosophical - love, responsibility, genius. Very very philosophical, but fun to read. Particularly if you took a course in Russian history.