Book cover of The Doomed City

Book description

The magnum opus of Russia’s greatest science fiction novelists translated into English for the first time
 
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 they worked hardest on,…

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Why read it?

1 author picked The Doomed City as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Written in Soviet Russia in 1972, but only published in 1989, this is the story of a bizarre experimental city populated by strangers from all over the last century. All have made a deal with mysterious mentors who are trying to find out…something, by subjecting the city’s inhabitants to apparently arbitrary torments like plagues of baboons. Our hero, Andrei, tries to take it in stride like a good Soviet boy, but finds himself increasingly doubtful as the conditions of the experiment just get weirder and weirder. The humor and situations are very Russian while the emotions will be familiar to…

From Moro's list on ideological adventure.

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