The brothers Arkady and Boris Strugatsky have been Russia's most popular science fiction writers since their first publication appeared in 1959. The enormous and consistent popularity of their works over three decades of fluctuating political and literary conditions is all the more interesting when one considers that their primary readership has been the Russian scientific-technical intelligentsia—a sector of society whose values and attitudes were instrumental in transforming the Soviet Union. This lively and original study of the Strugatskys’ development as writers and as spokesmen for a generation of Russian scientists is as timely as it is unique. It is also the first English language study of the Strugatskys’ previously unpublished novels.

Yvonne Howell is Professor of Russian and International Studies at the University of Richmond. She teaches courses on twentieth and twenty-first century Russian literature, Soviet culture and civilization, and Russian and East European science fiction.