A Billion Years Before the End of the World. Requiem for Utopia

The brothers Arkady and Boris Strugatsky do not need any introduction to readers. Their works have become a classic not only of science fiction but also of modern Russian literature as a whole. From simple to complex, from "The Land... of Crimson Clouds" and early novellas and stories through "The Snail on the Slope" and "Roadside Picnic" to "The Doomed City" and "The Burden of Evil" — such a creative path the brothers have traversed over thirty years of their writing career. The path is rocky — accompanied by unchanging reader success, on one hand, and on the other — a cautious attitude from the literary authorities. The reasons are clear: the unpredictability of their behavior in literature and the suspicious atypicality of the characters whom the authors place before a difficult but necessary choice — either to remain human and paddle against the current of the world or to drift along with the current at the whim of the villainous lame fate.