
'Mountaineer' Is a Must-Read of Soviet Sci-Fi - rfreytag
http://www.npr.org/2015/03/19/392634682/mountaineer-is-a-must-read-of-soviet-sci-fi
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pandaman
This is an interesting book to translate to English. Glebsky is trying to
determine the gender of Brune for the half of the book and this involves
trying to make him/her to talk about oneself in the past. In Russian verbs are
inflected with gender only in the past tense so somebody speaking about
oneself in the past will have to inflect verbs with one's own gender but there
is no gender specific grammar for the present and future. Did they do
something clever in the translation or just dropped this plot line?

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JoeAltmaier
I'm wondering about the translator too. Name: Josh Billings, who is a famous
(sort of ) American jokester. Is this a real translation? Or someone
pretending to be a pair of Russian brother writers?

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BerislavLopac
How do you mean "pretending"?

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JoeAltmaier
Translator name is an alias; maybe that's a clue that they're not real. So
what could they be? An author pretending to be a translator...

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kirushik
If by 'they' you mean Strugatsky brothers, then let me assure you that they
are more than real.

(I'm russian and I've grown up reading their books.)

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geoka9
They were...

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kirushik
In some sense — they still are, maybe more then both of us.

That kind of immortality is one of the perks of being a great artist.

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baldfat
The only Russian Sci-Fi I have read was Roadside Picnic. I REALLY enjoyed it
in multiple of different layers. Was nice to read a book fromt he cold war on
the "other side" from where I grew up. I need toadd this title to my list.

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joshuapants
Roadside Picnic was really chilling. I'll definitely add this to my list as
well. Do you know of any recommended reading lists for Soviet/Eastern Bloc
scifi?

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jakobdabo
Some recent works:

"Metro 2033" by Dmitry Glukhovsky -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metro_2033](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metro_2033)

"Night Watch" by Sergei Lukyanenko -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_Watch_%28Lukyanenko_nove...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_Watch_%28Lukyanenko_novel%29)

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PerfectDlite
Both of them are pulp-fiction and a pale reflection of works of modern US and
UK authors.

I can recommend them only if you need to compare queality of mass-produced
fiction across several countries.

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anigbrowl
The actual name of the book is 'The Dead Mountaineer's Inn.' What is it with
American journalists that they feel it's OK to just change the titles of
things to make a snappy headline? I've never seen this behavior in any other
country's media. I find it incredibly disrespectful.

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StavrosK
It's like a nickname, you refer to a long title with the most descriptive word
in it. However, when a book is obscure, this practice does it a disservice.

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scintill76
I've seen this more commonly when a writer has already written the full title
earlier in the article. It does seem strange and unhelpful to do it in a
headline about an obscure (to the audience) book.

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fractallyte
The definitive collection of Soviet SF was Macmillan's 'Best of Soviet Science
Fiction', published in the early 1980s.

It comprised a mix of novels (by the Strugatskys, among others), and short
story collections. I count a significant number of these as being among the
finest SF I've yet come across. Many envelope the reader in an air of
melancholy; very Bradburyesque.

Here's a description of one of the notable authors, from "World's Spring",
edited by Vladimir Gakov:

 _" Genrikh Altov is one of the most interesting portraits in the gallery of
Soviet science fiction writers. An engineer and inventor who holds several
dozen patents; the creator of a new science on which special courses are now
being given in educational institutions in the USSR, 'The Theory of
Invention,' and the author of several monographs in this field; an SF fan and
the author of the unparalleled (I vote for a special Hugo Award!) Altov's
Register - a catalog of themes, plots, hypotheses, ideas, situations, etc.,
containing hundreds of thousands of processed bits of information. (The dream
of the SF writer: an idea comes to you, so you check it out in the Register to
see if it has been used before; if the idea has been 'copyrighted' by another
writer, it's no great problem, because the Register contains open cells, the
descriptions of still-unused sf ideas and situations.) A theoretician of the
sf genre; the author of profound articles tracing the sf predictions of Wells,
Verne, Alexander Beliaev... A teacher at a scientific research institute
teaching young inventors to develop their imaginations, their ability not to
be afraid of 'crazy' ideas..."_

There's also a stunning novel in the series: "Self Discovery", by Vladimir
Savchenko. It has a completely convincing description of a biological computer
AI. And then, this: _" I would like to study the question of the untapped
resources of man's organism. For example, the obsolescent functions, like our
common ancestor's ability to leap from tree to tree or to sleep in the
branches. Now that is no longer necessary, but the cells are still there. Or
take the 'goosebump' phenomenon - it happens on skin that has almost no hair
now. It is created by a vast nervous network. Perhaps these old reflexes can
be restructured, re-programmed to meet new needs?"_ (In Theodore Sturgeon's
words: _" What an astonishing, what an exciting concept!"_)

Best of all, that book is freely available online:
[http://www.lib.ru/RUFANT/SAWCHENKO/savchenko_selfdiscovery_o...](http://www.lib.ru/RUFANT/SAWCHENKO/savchenko_selfdiscovery_ok-
engl.txt)

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ableal
Seems that "first-ever English translation" is not quite exact, there was a
1988 version titled Inspector Glebsky's Puzzle:
[http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1053108.Inspector_Glebsky...](http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1053108.Inspector_Glebsky_s_Puzzle)

P.S.: also,
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Mountaineer's_Hotel](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Mountaineer's_Hotel)

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avmich
Don't forget Ivan Efremov's works. E.g. "Andromeda Nebula".

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huhtenberg
From the post-Soviet selection, Labyrinth of Reflections is a superb cyberpunk
novel. Not sure if there's an official English translation though (but there
is a German one).

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labyrinth_of_Reflections](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labyrinth_of_Reflections)

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Gravityloss
There's an Estonian movie about it. I haven't seen it but the music is very
haunting.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTlISg0Oyv8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTlISg0Oyv8)

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JoeAltmaier
Can't mention Science Fiction without mentioning Stanslaw Lem - who was clever
enough to write around and past the censors.

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detaro
They basically all had to do this. In a bunch of my German Strugatzki books
there are a few snippets about the history of the works where they talk about
how they worked around it (and sometimes rather didn't publish stuff than to
kill it).

The techniques are the same as "always" (you find exactly the same if you look
at old movies in the US): Don't say the important things explicitly and
provide explicit decoys for the censors to latch onto. And have good editors
that are willing to fight for you.

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willvarfar
Tangentially related, soviet-era sci-fi illustrations (mostly of the space
race and the era the brothers departed from) is really great! There are lots
of articles at
[http://www.darkroastedblend.com](http://www.darkroastedblend.com)

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dschiptsov
Most of their novels are good read. Especially "Hard to Be a God", "Snail on
the Slope", "The Ugly Swans", "The Inhabited Island", and, of course, "The
Roadside Picnic".

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arkady_and_Boris_Strugatsky](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arkady_and_Boris_Strugatsky)

Actually, it was very interesting phenomena, how in age of strict Soviet
censure these seemingly Sci Fi books were filled with philosophical,
humanitarian and political ideas. Lots of Soviet people grew up on these
texts, within these imaginary worlds, which are so much better than harsh
Soviet reality.

Nowadays, btw, authors of the next generation implant big ideas into what
seems to be stories about vampires.)

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senko
Could you point to a few examples (of the latter)?

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vadman
By "stories about vampires" GP probably means Lukyanenko's "* Watch" series:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_Lukyanenko#Series](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_Lukyanenko#Series)

"Night Watch" the movie made some splashes even in the West, IIRC. Trailer:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMHQsjgQDrA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMHQsjgQDrA)

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starrychloe
I liked Kin-Dza-Dza
[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2659374/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2659374/)
and the remake.

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talideon
It, and a bunch of other Soviet movies are available on the Mosfilm channel:
[https://www.youtube.com/user/mosfilm](https://www.youtube.com/user/mosfilm)

Part 1:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I47CNxwlt9U](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I47CNxwlt9U)

Part 2:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eti9Qn4bZDg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eti9Qn4bZDg)

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genericuser
Title is missing a word which makes it a bit cryptic.

Is A _Must-Read_ Of

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sctb
Thanks, we updated the title.

