Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ

A great book and a refreshing view on a post-apocalyptic world whose anthology focuses more on the lives and reactions of humans, down to the last idiosyncrasy of speech.

I also implore anyone who has read this book or is interested in the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. game to read about the difficulty the Strugatsky brothers faced in publishing this book under Soviet Russia - it's fascinating.



Edit: I also want to add that there is a fascinating history behind this book getting published. It took over 8 years for this to be published under Soviet Russia - not for any explicit political reasons, but purely because the straightforward speech of the characters and the not-so-Shakespearean writing was considered crass. The publishing industry at the time believed that characters drinking, swearing or threatening murder wouldn't be a good example to the "Soviet Youth that primarily consumed science fiction".

“The problem is we don’t notice the years pass, he thought. Screw the years—we don’t notice things change. We know that things change, we’ve been told since childhood that things change, we’ve witnessed things change ourselves many a time, and yet we’re still utterly incapable of noticing the moment that change comes—or we search for change in all the wrong places.�