Sasha, a young computer programmer from Leningrad, is driving north to meet some friends for a nature vacation. He picks up a couple of hitchhikers, who persuade him to take a job at the National Institute for the Technology of Witchcraft and Thaumaturgy. The adventures Sasha has in the largely dysfunctional institute involve all sorts of magical beings—a wish-granting fish, a tree mermaid, a cat who can remember only the beginnings of stories, a dream-interpreting sofa, a motorcycle that can zoom into the imagined future, a lazy dog-size mosquito—along with a variety of wizards (including Merlin), vampires, and officers. First published in Russia in 1965, Monday Starts on Saturday has become the most popular Strugatsky novel in their homeland. Like the works of Gogol and Kafka, it tackles the nature of institutions—here focusing on one devoted to discovering and perfecting human happiness. By turns wildly imaginative, hilarious, and disturbing, Monday Starts on Saturday is a comic masterpiece by two of the world’s greatest science-fiction writers.
 

 

“Monday Starts on Saturday is not just an ingenious and gripping read but simply a delight from start to finish. . . . This is a novel with which to fall in love.” —Adam Roberts, from his foreword

"This melding of bureaucracy and the numinous is highly enjoyable and impossible to compare to any other work."—Publishers Weekly

“A comic commentary reflecting Russia of the 60s, the Strugatsky brothers wove a clever tale that made it one of the most popular books in their country, ever.”—Geeks of Doom