Titles by Boris Strugatsky

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Titles Found: 9

Hard to Be a God (4 Formats) ›

By Arkady Strugatsky, By Boris Strugatsky, Foreword by Hari Kunzru, Translated by Olena Bormashenko

Trade Paper Price 16.95

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Published Jun 2014

Arkady and Boris Strugatsky are widely known as the greatest Russian writers of science fiction, and their 1964 novel Hard to Be a God is considered one of the greatest of their works.

It tells the story of Don Rumata, who is sent from Earth to the medieval kingdom of Arkanar with instructions to observe and to influence, but never to directly interfere. Masquerading as an arrogant nobleman, a dueler and a brawler, Don Rumata is never defeated but can never kill. With his doubt and compassion, and his deep love for a local girl named Kira, Rumata wants to save the kingdom from the machinations of Don Reba, the First Minister to the king. But given his orders, what role can he play?

Hard to Be a God has inspired a computer role-playing game and two movies, including Aleksei German’s long-awaited swan song. Yet until now the only English version (out of print for over thirty years) was based on a German translation, and was full of errors, infelicities, and misunderstandings. This new edition—translated by Olena Bormashenko, whose translation of the authors’ Roadside Picnic has received widespread acclaim, and supplemented with a new foreword by Hari Kunzru and an afterword by Boris Strugatsky, both of which supply much-needed context—reintroduces one of the most profound Soviet-era novels to an eager audience.

Lame Fate | Ugly Swans (4 Formats) ›

By Arkady Strugatsky, By Boris Strugatsky, Translated by Maya Vinokour, Afterword by Boris Strugatsky

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Published Aug 2020

A chilling exploration of Soviet society and the artist's role within it. Never before translated into English, Lame Fate tells of author Felix Sorokin, asked to submit a writing sample to a machine evaluating literary merit. Should he risk sharing his unpublished masterpiece? Sorokin’s work is Ugly Swans, presented here in a new translation. It follows Victor Banev, who returns to his hometown to find it haunted by the supernatural “clammies.” They terrify adults but enthrall teens, including Banev’s daughter.

These intertwining stories delve into political progress, honor, courage, and art's value. As the Soviet era wanes, can individuals maintain integrity against oppression and decay? For readers of science fiction, literary fiction, and Russian history, this collection offers a thought-provoking journey into a world of moral compromise and the search for meaning.

Monday Starts on Saturday (4 Formats) ›

By Boris Strugatsky, By Arkady Strugatsky, Translated by Andrew Bromfield, Foreword by Adam Roberts, Afterword by Boris Strugatsky

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Published Oct 2017

Sasha, a young computer programmer from Leningrad, is driving through the forests of Northwest Russia to meet up with some friends for a nature vacation. He picks up a couple of local hitchhikers, who persuade him to come work with them at the National Institute for the Technology of Witchcraft and Thaumaturgy, or NITWiT. The adventures Sasha has in the largely dysfunctional Institute involve all sorts of magical beings and devices—a wish-granting fish, a talking cat who can remember only the beginnings of stories, a sofa that translates fairy tales into reality, a motorcycle that can zoom into the imagined future, a hungry dog-size mosquito—along with a variety of wizards (including Merlin), vampires, and petty bureaucrats.
First published in Russia in 1964, Monday Starts on Saturday has become the most popular Strugatsky novel in the authors’ 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.

Roadside Picnic (4 Formats) ›

By Arkady Strugatsky, By Boris Strugatsky, Foreword by Ursula K. Le Guin, Translated by Olena Bormashenko

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Published May 2012

Red Schuhart is a stalker, one of those young rebels who are compelled, in spite of extreme danger, to venture illegally into the Zone to collect the mysterious artifacts that the alien visitors left scattered around. His life is dominated by the place and the thriving black market in the alien products. But when he and his friend Kirill go into the Zone together to pick up a “full empty,” something goes wrong. And the news he gets from his girlfriend upon his return makes it inevitable that he’ll keep going back to the Zone, again and again, until he finds the answer to all his problems.

First published in 1972, Roadside Picnic is still widely regarded as one of the greatest science fiction novels, despite the fact that it has been out of print in the United States for almost thirty years. This authoritative new translation corrects many errors and omissions and has been supplemented with a foreword by Ursula K. Le Guin and a new afterword by Boris Strugatsky explaining the strange history of the novel’s publication in Russia.

The Beetle in the Anthill (3 Formats) ›

By Arkady Strugatsky, By Boris Strugatsky, Translated by Olena Bormashenko, Afterword by Boris Strugatsky

Trade Paper Price 19.99

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Published Apr 2023

Today, Russian authors Arkady and Boris Strugatsky are counted among the best science fiction writers of the twentieth century.
In their Noon Universe novels, they imagined twenty-second-century Earth as a space-faring communist utopia, devoted to guiding the progress of civilization on alien worlds. But as the authors became increasingly disillusioned with life in the Soviet Union, their Noon Universe stories grew darker and more complex as well.
The Beetle in the Anthill reintroduces Maxim Kammerer, the main character of their novel The Inhabited Island. Once an intrepid young space explorer, Kammerer is now an investigator with COMCON-2, the covert agency in charge of countering threats to the homeworld. He is tasked with tracking “progressor” Lev Abalkin, who has returned to Earth after a routine mission went tragically wrong. Do the secrets of Abalkin’s past pose a grave danger to humanity—or is he an innocent caught up in a deadly misunderstanding?
This new edition by lauded translator Olena Bormashenko joins updated translations of Hard to Be a God, The Inhabited Island, and The Waves Extinguish the Wind to continue the ever-deepening saga of the Noon Universe.

The Doomed City (4 Formats) ›

By Arkady Strugatsky, By Boris Strugatsky, Translated by Bromfield Andrew, Foreword by Dmitry Glukhovsky

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Published Jul 2016

Arkady and Boris Strugatsky are widely considered the greatest of Russian science fiction masters, and their most famous work, Roadside Picnic, has enjoyed great popularity worldwide. Yet the novel that was their own favorite, and that readers worldwide have acclaimed as their magnum opus, has never before been published in English. The Doomed City was so politically risky that the Strugatsky brothers kept its existence a complete secret even from their best friends for sixteen years after its completion in 1972. It was only published in Russia in the late 1980s, the last of their works to see publication. It was translated into a host of major European languages, and now appears in English in a major new translation by acclaimed translator Andrew Bromfield. The Doomed City is set in an experimental city bordered by an abyss on one side and an impossibly high wall on the other. Its sole inhabitants are people who were plucked from Earth's history and left to govern themselves under conditions established by Mentors whose purpose seems inscrutable. Andrei Voronin, a young astronomer plucked from Leningrad in the 1950s, is a diehard believer in the Experiment, even though he's now a garbage collector. And as increasingly nightmarish scenarios begin to affect the city, he rises through the political hierarchy, with devastating effect.

The Inhabited Island (4 Formats) ›

By Arkady Strugatsky, By Boris Strugatsky, Translated by Andrew Bromfield

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Published Feb 2020

When Maxim Kammerer, a young space explorer from twenty-second-century Earth, crash-lands on an uncharted world, he thinks of himself as a latter-day Robinson Crusoe. Eager to establish first contact with the planet’s humanlike inhabitants, he finds himself increasingly entangled in their primitive way of life. After his experiences in their nightmarish military, criminal justice, and mental health systems, Maxim begins to realize that his sojourn on this radioactive and war-scarred world will not be a walk in the park.

The Inhabited Island is one of the Strugatsky brothers’ most popular and acclaimed novels, yet the only previous English-language edition (Prisoners of Power) was based on a version heavily censored by Soviet authorities. Now, in a sparkling new edition by award-winning translator Andrew Bromfield, this land-mark novel can be newly appreciated by both longtime Strugatsky fans and new explorers of the Russian science fiction masters’ astonishingly rich body of work.

The Snail on the Slope (5 Formats) ›

By Arkady Strugatsky, By Boris Strugatsky, Translated by Olena Bormashenko, Afterword by Boris Strugatsky

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Published Aug 2018

A surreal journey into a world of bureaucratic absurdity and untamed wilderness.

The Snail on the Slope, a masterpiece by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, explores two contrasting realms: the Administration, a bizarre bureaucracy tasked with governing the enigmatic Forest, and the Forest itself, a place of primal fear and strange phenomena. Peretz seeks escape from the Administration, while Candide, a denizen of the Forest, yearns for its sterile order.

As their paths intertwine, readers are drawn into a world where reality blurs and the search for meaning becomes a desperate struggle. Will Peretz and Candide find what they seek, or will they be consumed by the forces that shape their existence? Translated by Olena Bormashenko, this rediscovered classic invites you to confront the unsettling truths of control, identity, and the power of the unknown. Perfect for readers of philosophical science fiction and Russian literature.

The Waves Extinguish the Wind (3 Formats) ›

By Boris Strugatsky, By Arkady Strugatsky, Translated by Daniels Umanovskis, Afterword by Boris Strugatsky

Trade Paper Price 19.99

Trade Paper, PDF, EPUB

Published Apr 2023

Today, Russian authors Arkady and Boris Strugatsky are counted among the best science fiction writers of the twentieth century.
In their Noon Universe novels, they imagined twenty-second-century Earth as a space-faring communist utopia, devoted to guiding the progress of civilization on alien worlds. But as the authors became increasingly disillusioned with life in the Soviet Union, their Noon Universe stories grew darker and more complex as well.
The Waves Extinguish the Wind provides the epic conclusion to the Noon Universe saga, as eighty-nine-year-old Maxim Kammerer looks back at his most earth-shattering investigation, which brought an entire era of human civilization to an end. Searching for evidence that the mysterious alien Wanderers were interfering in Earth’s development, Kammerer and his young trainee Toivo Glumov discovered a deeper and more disturbing secret within humanity itself.
This new translation by Daniels Umanovskis joins updated editions of Hard to Be a God, The Inhabited Island, and The Beetle in the Anthill to bring the saga of the Noon Universe to its fitting end: a search for truth and answers in a universe that provides only questions.