 Arkady Natanovich & Boris Natanovich Strugatskie
Arkady was born in 1925, Boris in 1933. In the 1960s these brothers became the most popular science fiction writers in the Soviet Union. It's Difficult To Be A God (1964) is a tale of life in a fascist state. Predatory Things of the Age (1965) shows a future materialistic state where people are in danger of turning into contented idiots. The Second Coming of the Martians (1967) is a Gogol-esque satire of bureaucracy and the xenophobe. Int The Snail on the Slope (1966-1968), a giant forest is being studied by a state security agency. The atmosphere is so oppresive that even the machines want to escape. The Fairy Tale of a Troika (1968) is a fable in which the universe is a skyscraper where the sewer cleaners have seized power. In The Inhabited Island (1969) a government uses transmitter stations to control men's minds. Spontaneous Reflex is about a robot that is so sophisticated, it develops a spontaneous reflex and decides to go on a walkabout.
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