One Billion Years to the End of the World

One of the Strugatsky brothers is descended from Gogol and the other from Chekhov, but nobody is sure which is which … A beautiful book – Ursula K. Le GuinOne of the best and most provocative novels I have ever read, in or out of sci-fi – Theodore SturgeonThey open windows in the mind and then fail to close them all, so that, putting down one of their books, you feel a cold breeze still lifting the hairs on the back of your neck. * The New York Times *

Arkady Strugatsky (1925 - 1991) and Boris Strugatsky (1933 - 2012) are Russia’s most acclaimed and popular science-fiction writers. Their unique style - at once hilarious and pitch black - encompassed a remarkable variety of different genres- from space opera to alien invasion, from locked-room mystery to dystopian apocalypse. While their initial output was uncritical of Soviet life, over time their work became much more subversive - science fiction being the perfect vehicle to hide their critiques from censors. In 1981 they shared the Aelita Award, Russia’s most prestigious science-fiction prize.