What are the classics and latest hits of Russian science fiction?
Are there any books with credible female characters (rare in sci-fi)
Which books would you recommend to read in Russian, or as a translation.
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What are the classics and latest hits of Russian science fiction?
Are there any books with credible female characters (rare in sci-fi)
Which books would you recommend to read in Russian, or as a translation.
Самое свежее и удивительное, что я читал — это Ибатуллин Роберт, "Роза и Червь". Эта книга еще не издана, существует только в электронном виде.
Вот отзыв, с которым я полностью согласен — такой качественной научной фантастики не было уже очень давно.
Credible female characters там тоже имеются. (Если я правильно понимаю это выражение.) Во всяком случае, Зара Янг и Гвинед Ллойд, на мой взгляд, выписаны очень достоверно.
Absolute classics are A&B Strugatsky. They are Tolstoy and Dostoevksy of Soviet\Russian sci-fi. Some (especially later) works closer to "serious literature" with sci-fi elements, like Vonnegut's. Most important books are Roadside Picnic, The Doomed City, Hard To Be a God, The Ugly Swans.
Well, the Strugatsky brothers were writers of so called soft (social) SF (in contrast with Роза и Червь which is a brilliant example of hard SF). To the Strugatsky's books you mentioned, I'd like to add The Kid and Inhabited Island. They are absolutely must-read too.
And if we talk about soft SF, there is yet another talented SF writer. Eugeny Lukin. In my opinion, he is much more Russian in spirit than Soviet Strugatsky. I do not want to offend anyone, the Strugatsky brothers are good SF writers too. But if one wants to read Russian SF, one definitely should read Lukin's books.
Евгений Лукин в Википедии, на сайте fantlab.ru и на сайте flibusta.net.Quote:
Евгений Юрьевич, как вы пришли в фантастику? И почему — в фантастику?
В фантастику я пришел 5 марта 1950 года. Проще говоря, родился. Долгое время жил, учился и работал, не подозревая, что живу, учусь и работаю в фантастическом мире. Слова Достоевского о том, что нет ничего фантастичнее обыденности и что истина в России имеет характер вполне фантастический, искренне считал парадоксами. Потом все кажущееся действительностью (в том числе и Советский Союз) затрещало по швам — и стало окончательно ясно, что классик не шутил. Точно так же, как лягушка видит лишь движущиеся предметы, мы прозреваем исключительно во время перемен. Потом опять слепнем. Но мне повезло. Я не только не смог срастись с нынешней небывальщиной, которую мы опять называем реальностью, — всматриваясь в нее, я понимаю, что и тот, ушедший, мир был не менее невероятен. Одна фантастика сменила другую — всего-то делов.
Таким образом я попутно ответил и на второй ваш вопрос: некуда было больше прийти.
(I'm pretty sure I've made some grammatical mistakes in this post. Corrections are welcome. :) )
Classics: Strugatsky brothers of course. My favorite is "Monday starts at Saturday". Also there are some classics from 1920s like Belyayev and Alexey Tolstoy. Also Ivan Yefremov is considered classics but his books are too boring for me. From the modern writers I like early works of Sergey Lukyanenko. I didn't like his most recent books though. Btw, Ramil translated the whole Lukyanenko NOVEL (not the best one imho) into English here at this forum:
http://masterrussian.net/f50/s-lukya...welcome-12475/
Иван Ефремов is one of the mainstream si-fi writers of the Soviet period. His books are not bad, just overburden with the communist ideology. For my opinion his best book is "Час быка", an anti utopian novel. Another well-known writer is Александр Казанцев with his books about an ancient civilization from the exploded planet Faeton.
Kir Bulychev created a credible female character. Alisa Selezneva. ;) Short stories are pretty good.
Super helpful, thanks! 1920s is too far back for me, I am more into newer things, say 1960s and onwards.Quote:
Originally Posted by Basil77
Sergey Lukyanenko. I'll check out Sergey Lukyanenko. Incredible that Ramil translated that novel! What a star. Haven't seen him here for ages. Maybe he got tired of all the trolling lately.
I think this is perfect for actually reading in Russian, or even listening to, on iPod.
There is a book called Metro 2033 I'd like to read too. Author is an interesting person called Dimitry Glukhovsky.
I'll definitely check him off and a little ideology doesn't put me off. All the American sci-fi books are full of it, so that would just be a different angle. Anti-utopian?! sounds interesting. Not sure about the planet Faeton book - sounds like it might be too deep.Quote:
Originally Posted by SergeMak
Strugatskis is a must-read, I think and Lukin sounds interesting - I like the "more Russian" aspect, it sounds interesting.Quote:
Originally Posted by RedFox
Going on the hunt for this, to put on my ipod and e-reader!
Александр Казанцев was an advocate of paleo-contact theories. I think he strongly believed that representatives of extraterrestrial civilizations had visited the Earth many eons ago and influenced the development of humanity. So he elaborates this theme in his books.
Сергей Павлов. "Лунная радуга"
Лунная радуга. Книга 1. По черному следу (fb2) | Флибуста
Лунная радуга. Книга 2. Мягкие зеркала (fb2) | Флибуста
Classic sci-fi is traditionally modern-problems oriented technical and social. Yes, it is not about credible characters, it is about ideas. Nowadays sci-fi usually treated as easy reading in fictional setting that makes the genre more flexible for experiments. That is what fantazy, and many contemporary Russian writers often write in both genres (sci-fi and fantasy) or even mix them up so it is hard to distinguish them. In the same mix often alternative history.
Here some of my preferences (a bit outdated) in both genres as I don't separate in contemporary literature in random order.
Lukyanenko is today's easy reading in sci-fi with acceptable literary quality.
Kirill Eskov - I can recommend two books actually The Gospel of Afranius and The last ringbearer. He used scientific approach to the Gospel and Tolkien's universe and gained nice action adventure novels. The first one may be too boring if you don't know well the background.
Parfenova - her debute trilogy contained all typical mistakes of the beginning writer but at the same time was of extreme quality and really refreshing. The books full of female emotions, that a techno&science&logic man like me was able to enjoy. Though the language is rich and intensive and can be hard to read.
...to be continue... maybe
Quote:
Originally Posted by it-ogo
Whereas I don't make a lot of sense when I am tired, and writing in a hurry, you do, lol ! That was interesting. Please continue whenever...
Yes, probably science fiction gets dated eventually; or it becomes clear that technology moved in a different way than what the writers imagined, so the technical premise of the novel seems irrelevant. Social ideas and values. The sexism in older American science fiction is very tiresome - just have to try to ignore it to enjoy the story. Of course, it was normal at the time of publishing, and almost all the readers were men anyway.
I know some of the older sci-fi it is literature in its own right; philosophical etc. Definitely including some Russian science-fiction.
But it's not for me. I like the social aspects of sci-fi, the politics and the technology. The Foundation saga (Asimov) is still one of my favourite books. Asimov was unable to imagine how computing would develop though - and some aspects of the books seem very dated today.
Same for films: Watched a an episode of "Star Trek Voyager" from the late 1990s (I believe). All the computing and communication looks ancient and very clunky!
[off to work, more later]
For me the most prominent person in old American SF is Ursula Le Guin. Not much sexim I believe - she was a feminist. :) Though even feminism in those times was different.Quote:
Originally Posted by Hanna
...
Shumil - very sharp and exact technichal and logical descriptions. No contradictions and baby-talk in technics (especially computer technics) if you know what I mean. Though some major fails in psychology and ethics IMHO. The main character usually is too masculine... :D Though female characters around are able to make fun of him even if unable to resist his charisma.
Scheglov - his Panga series is an example of sci-fi\fantazy mixture - very natural. The idea of magic describes a perfect user interface of a powerful high-tech device, doesn't it?
Rudazov - easy reading. Travels between worlds and adventures. Particularly good in comedy situations and charachters' banters. Start with Archmage series from the beginning. Later it goes worse.
Lazarchuk - «Иное небо» - an alternative history. Intellectual and rather complicated... Actually can't recommend reading in foreign language. But it is in my short list.
Max Frei - a woman actually. No SF though. "Labyrinths of Echo" series is a Harry Potter for grown ups with a very specific view of life and philosophy, which you either adore of hate.
Kamsha - two epic sagas in fictional medieval-to-renaissance-like worlds with mystics, magic and intensive eschatology. No one is completed up to now. No problems with credible female charachters as she's a woman. She's a fan of GRR Martin and her sagas resemble his one but they are way not so cruel and way more romantic.
Bushkov - mainly known for his action but has a nice series of SF\fantasy "Svarog". A lucky idiot in a Boschian world. First three novels are readable then he sold his name to publishers and now they publish garbage by shadowwriters in that series.
...
Oh, Bushkov! I'd like to say a few words on him.Quote:
Originally Posted by it-ogo
He seems to be a graphomaniac and the most of his publications is junk and garbage. But he wrote two such excellent novels, I can't help respecting him.
These novels are Лабиринт and Провинциальная хроника начала осени. Their genre is not SF, fantasy or action but more like a fable with profound ideas on meaning of life and what human beings are.
I heartily recommend everyone to have a look at them. They are relatively short, so that doesn't take much time.
I LOVED the Earthsea saga as a kid. Particularly the one about the girl who was a priestess over a labyrinth. Probably read that about 5 times.Quote:
Originally Posted by it-ogo
But I've only read one adult book by her. Christmas gift, I think it was called "Playing human" or something like that. Didn't really get into it. Based on your approval that will definitely change!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xi3w6U_yEK8
Wow, what a great summary with the hyperlinks. I think this thread may be worthy of becoming a sticky, at this rate.Quote:
Originally Posted by it-ogo
On the female character aspect. Yes, I absolutely don't need feminist heroines who kick butt and are action heroes.
All I ask is that they have more than one brain cell and are in the book for some other purpose than a sexy distraction.
One of the reasons I like to watch Soviet films once in a while is because they have interesting female characters of all ages. Not feminists, beauty queens or female action heroes, but regular women with an interesting story and a bit of personality. Don't know if that was deliberate, but it's very noticeable. Another reason is that I prefer a slower development of the plot, and I'm fine without brutal violence and sex scenes.
Would be interesting to know if sci-fi written during the Soviet era has similar characteristics.
Modern Russian sci-fi interests me more though, and anything older than 20 years is probably risking being a bit dated unless is strictly philosophical.
The question is whether I am able to read in Russian at this point. It's one thing to skim through the odd comment on Masterrussian where I can cheat and look things up. It's quite another to read a book.
I listen to audiobooks a lot (lets you do other things as you "read") - and I think I understand spoken Russian a bit better, possibly.
I wonder if I'd be able to follow an audiobook? I'm on a break in my Russian studies at the moment, to be resumed next year.
I totally forgot that Goodreads have book lists for everything. They say:
http://fotohost.kz/images/2013/11/19/AZ1XC.jpg
They seem to be counting the same books multiple times in different languages ?! Polish, or something.
There is a general opinion that her best work is "The Left Hand of Darkness". On me personally the strongest influence had "City of illusions". Her books are very poetic and in the same time they discuss some problems that are or can become actual - that's what makes her books classic SF.Quote:
Originally Posted by Hanna
In the google list - yes, there are some Polish translations and few duplicates.
In the list:
Strugatsky - the best of Soviet SF. Good literary quality though I don't remember women among their central heroes.
Lukyanenko - the most popular post-soviet SF.
Dyachenko (actualy married co-authors) - reputation of intellectual writing but I find them pretentious rather than meaningful.
Bulychov - Soviet times. I found him not enough serious mostly.
"METRO" series - Postapocalipsis. I didn't read.
Small offtopic. For me the best SF writer forever and ever is Polish Stanislaw Lem. He's not only the brilliant writer but also a futurologist. His main work in futurology Summa Technologiae issued in 1964 was a Bible of Soviet technichal intelligentsia and I believe it is not obsolete in a single letter even now. In 2013 it finally got the first English edition:
- Lem, Stanisław (2013). Summa technologiae. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. ISBN 0816675767.
Hmmm. To me, the term "soft science-fiction" in English often implies a "space opera" in which faster-than-light spaceships, time travel, telekinesis, and other very unlikely things are simply taken as real and scientifically explainable (i.e., non-magical), though without any attempt to explain how they actually work. Both Star Trek and Star Wars could be considered "soft" in this sense. But Star Trek, which frequently discussed 20th-century problems like racism and the Cold War in allegorical terms, could also be called "soft" in the "social" sense.Quote:
Originally Posted by RedFox
In contrast, Heinlein's The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress describes in believable and realistic terms the technical possibility of using a rail-gun catapult to launch cargo from the Earth to the Moon, without using "magical" techno-babble. For this reason the novel is often regarded as exemplifying "hard" science fiction. (Of course, Heinlein certainly gets some things quite wrong -- he assumes that photo-realistic CGI video doesn't get invented until around 2075, a time when the Moon already has several cities and a permanent population of 3 or 4 million humans!) On the other hand, to the extent that it discusses libertarian theory and male/female sex roles, TMiaHM is "soft social" sci-fi.
The en.wikipedia article about "soft science fiction", by the way, gives Orwell's 1984 as an example of "social" sci-fi, and Čapek's R.U.R. as a example of sci-fi that's "soft" in the sense that the robots might as well be magical golems.
I remember those scenes from the book and I thought it was one of the silliest aspects of that book. Can anyone explain how that is scientific?Quote:
Originally Posted by Throbert McGee
My fave Heinlein book is a kids adventure about two boys in a boarding school on Mars, who outsmart an evil corporation with the help of ancient Martians. Forgotten the name. Too bad it's totally unrealistic based on what's now known about the geology of Mars. No canals to skate on, and no exotic plants.
Love everything about Mars though - Red Mars series was fantastic, but gosh the amount of bizarre bias about Russians and other nationalities.
I realise that warp speed etc has no scientific basis, but my smart phone is probably on par with the pads from Star Trek Voyager!
Well, unlike faster-than-light travel, it doesn't blatantly violate known laws of physics; unlike telepathy, it doesn't suppose that there is some "fifth fundamental force" completely unknown to science; unlike the X-Men, it doesn't ridiculously ignore basic principles of how REAL gene mutations work; etc.Quote:
Originally Posted by Hanna
But the railgun described by Heinlein is a technically plausible extrapolation of known science. You could, of course, object that such a catapult is totally unrealistic from an economic POV -- in that it would be so enormously expensive to build that it could never pay for itself. You could also foresee that because it might take decades to build something so huge, someone might in the meantime invent a better and cheaper way to get stuff beyond Earth's orbit, thereby making the railgun project obsolete before it was finished!
There is, however, nothing inherently non-scientific or "magical" about the concept, as discussed in this Wikipedia article on Mass drivers.
Found it -- the title is Red Planet, first published 1949. The Wikipedia article notes that the native Martians here are physically and culturally very similar to the ones that would appear 12 years later in the much more adult-oriented Stranger in a Strange Land. (Apparently, SiaSL was originally proposed by Heinlein's wife in the late '40s as a kids-oriented "Jungle Book on Mars", so Red Planet may have been an early experiment in this direction.)Quote:
Originally Posted by Hanna
Поясню, что я хотел сказать. :) Я использовал понятие мягкая научная фантастика в следующем значении:Quote:
Originally Posted by Throbert McGee
Это фантастика, которая основной акцент ставит не на научной достоверности, а на описании различных социальных процессов, характеров людей и т.п., или просто на "историях про космос" ("space opera"). Например, "Обитаемый остров" Стругацких — это история о том, как человек с европейским складом ума боролся против тоталитарного государства. Инопланетные реалии в этой книге просто декорации, они не имеют решающего значения. Хотя Стругацкие пишут про людей будущего, будущее в их книгах играет роль декорации, на самом деле они описывают процессы современного общества.
Другой пример, Лукин в своих книгах свободно смешивает науку, фэнтези, мистику, сказки и т.п. Некоторые его книги можно отнести к научной фантастике, другие же это что-то вроде русского фэнтези.
Книга "Роза и Червь", о которой я говорил в самом первом посте, — противоположный пример. Автор ставит задачу описать, как было бы устроено сообщество людей в космосе, если бы в 22-м веке Земля была уничтожена пришельцами. Он описывает все аспекты жизни: технологии, производство, коммуникации, политическое устройство общества, военные конфликты, характеры людей, их привычки, обычаи, отношения и т.п. Подобные книги я называю истинная научная фантастика, в противоположность "мягкой".
Не уверен, насколько такая классификация совпадает с принятой в английском языке.
I don't see the point in searching for "unrealistic" details in SF. Do you really believe that it is possible to describe (and explain "scientifically") ALL aspects of common life and technology in a far future? "Orwell did not predict cell phones OMG He's so outdated!!!" - This way? I don't think that even pretending to the realistic description of everything is not very wise because it means obvious and predictable epic fail.
For me the difference between the truъ and would-be SF is the main purpose of the author. If the purpose if to predict\warn\admire about something new that comes out with a sci/tech (and connected social) progress - it is truъ. If the main purpose is to entertain/stylize/escape-the-reality/get-the-profit/whatever else - it is would-be SF. That is subjective of course (as everything) but I believe that the criterion is clear enough for the most.
Also I believe that the main purpose of SF is a social aspect rather than technical. Fiction literature is a humanitarian tool and solving technical problems with it does not look like a good idea. Can you name a single technical prediction of Jules Verne that does not come out as obvious fail? Submarines? Hey, sample submarines existed before Jules Verne. Jules Verne is about the spirit of the modern age, not about the particular technics or physical laws.
The problem with the strong Sci-fi is that most writers don't know or don't quite understand the latest ideas in physics and other fields of science and most scientists cannot write good literature. The gap is widening. In the times of Jules Verne a futuristic prediction would turned to reality in several decades and that case lasted approximately for the 30s decade of the 20-th century. Then the exponential development of science and technology took off and got such an acceleration that technical novelties became to be introduced before they could have been predicted. Interestingly, though, that some scientific ideas were primarily invented by sci-fi writers and only then became adopted by physicists. Such a thing has happened with the idea of relativistic space-time. The Einstein-Minkovsky concept is that time is just another dimension of relativistic space-time unity. But this idea was elaborated by H.G. Wells in his "The Time Machine". I used too think that Wells wrote that novel under the impression of relativistic ideas of Einstein, but in reality, the book was written a few decades before Minkovsky and Einstein developed their time-space concept. And the book was based on a short story published even several decades earlier than the novel. So it looks like Wells knew intuitively about time-space half a century before scientists did!
Most writers of nowadays don't understand the last ideas in science though, I think. It seems, they are just interested in selling the possible biggest number of their books. So they elaborate on adventure, sex, violence and other eternal human emotions just in a slightly different imaginary context. At best they try to pose some sociological questions, as brothers Strugatsky did. Nobody could predict IT breakthrough, even the appearance of the Internet and the social changes that followed. And it's certainly a shame, because sci-fi writers abandoned a great mission they had, that is to predict the ways of the human society development and make people mentally and psychologically ready for the approaching changes.
Now it's happened that sci-fi became so uninteresting that some physicists took pen and began to popularise the unknown aspects of today science knowledge. And there are a lot of wonderful things. For example, the mystery of time. There is a British physicists Julian Barbour, who strongly believe that time doesn't even exists. His book "The End of Time" is a very interesting reading. There are also such problems as the enigma of human's consciousness and personality, the problem of the possibility of creation of artificial intellect, the problem of the possibility of trans-humanism, the problem of the existence of parallel worlds and so on.
(Moderation comment: further discussion moved to the new thread.)
Я придерживаюсь точки зрения, что хужественная литература в первую очередь для развлечения читателя. То есть опция "поднимать серьёзные и неоднозначные вопросы" — не умолчательная. Если, например, здесь будет топик типа "литература, которая заставляет задуматься", тогда конечно в нём будет важен именно аспект "гуманитарного инструмента".Quote:
Originally Posted by it-ogo
Но поскольку этот тред о развлекательной литературе, то для неё важны иные критерии. Люди обычно любят книги, схожие по сеттингу. В этом плане классификация фэнтэзи — мягкая НФ — труЪ НФ имеет практический смысл, т.к. помогает ориентироваться.
It does not qualify as Russian SF, but:
I just want to add, that Lem is better translated to Russian, than to English in my opinion. Possibly, word play is easier to translate due to similarity in Polish and Russian (I mean words like "электрыцарь" :) ).
Lem is probably my favourite SF author, and I highly recommend everybody to read him. My personal favourite novel is "Эдем". It is about spaceship crashing on a planet with highly organized life forms and the problems of contacting and understanding them.
Well, it depends on how you define "unrealistic." Old sci-fi which assumed that Venus is covered with swampy jungles is "unrealistic", but not "unrealistic" in the same sense as modern sci-fi which assumes that spaceships will someday be able to travel through Einstein-Rosen bridges, aka wormholes.Quote:
Originally Posted by it-ogo
After all, early sci-fi about the "Swamp People of Venus" did not actually contradict the scientific information about Venus that was known at the time -- rather, the authors took advantage of the fact that there was practically NO scientific information about Venus back then!
On the other hand, today's real-world physics predicts that IF Einstein-Rosen bridges actually exist at all, anything much larger than an electron would be crushed into "singularity" while attempting to pass through the wormhole. So, science-fiction which depicts ships going back and forth through wormholes is essentially "stealing" a valid concept from modern physics and using it in Magical and unrealistic way -- they might as well forget any pretense of science and solve the problem of interstellar travel by using the Floo Spell from Harry Potter!
On the other hand, there's nothing necessarily wrong with this sort of unrealism. The classic Mote In God's Eye uses a variation on the wormhole so that ships can travel between stars instantly, but this "magical" premise is simply an excuse to bring humans into contact with extraterrestrials who are biologically, psychologically, and culturally very different from humans. In fact, the rather unusual sex lives of the aliens -- they're sequential hermaphrodites -- has played a major role in shaping their history and culture, and so you could argue that the novel is "hard" sci-fi from a socio-biologist's point-of-view, even though a physicist might consider it "science fantasy" or "soft."
If I were going to criticize Orwell for anything, it would be that he did not predict hackers! (In other words, he assumed that the two-way "telescreens" were, and would remain, under the permanent control of the totalitarian government, and that dissidents would not find a way to exploit the technology for subversive purposes.)Quote:
Do you really believe that it is possible to describe (and explain "scientifically") ALL aspects of common life and technology in a far future? "Orwell did not predict cell phones OMG He's so outdated!!!"
(Moderation comment: partially moved to the new thread.)
The problem is, the impossibility of faster-than-light travel is not explained by any known law of physics. It's postulated "as is" and the whole physics theory is built upon that postulate. It's overall accepted, it's proved by innumerable experiment and observations but it never has been plausibly explained.Quote:
Well, unlike faster-than-light travel, it doesn't blatantly violate known laws of physics
I agree, but please remember, that however modern and strange and complicated the relativity may seem in fact it is a classical physics theory in the sense that it isn't a quantum theory. So nowadays it is perceived as outdated and needs to be redesigned in order to be built in the modern quantum perception of the world. As for the quantum theory, it opens doors to almost boundless flight of fantasy and speculations.Quote:
On the other hand, today's real-world physics predicts that IF Einstein-Rosen bridges actually exist at all, anything much larger than an electron would be crushed into "singularity" while attempting to pass through the wormhole. So, science-fiction which depicts ships going back and forth through wormholes is essentially "stealing" a valid concept from modern physics and using it in Magical and unrealistic way -- they might as well forget any pretense of science and solve the problem of interstellar travel by using the Floo Spell from Harry Potter!
I think, Strugarsky's books is very close to soviet regime. To understand it, you must understand sotivet regime. So, I can't recommend it to everybody.
Another names of russian SF - Vyacheslav Rybakov (Вячеслав Рыбаков), Ilya Varshavsky (Илья Варшавский).