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

Speaking of Soviet literature...

[ioscream]

check out: Sovlit

Cultural-Centric SF?

[purduephotog]

Like languages, environment define the terms you associate with life.

300 words for snow? Yup, if you are from the north. I think I have 5 or 6 ... Snow, SnowFall, Blizzard... whiteout...

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.

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.

War Stories are good also.

[tifosi]

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.

a faster mirror and some must read books

[dunkelfalke]

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

Not just Russian sci-fi

[PsychoTicOne]

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

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.