Rare Book of the Day – Hard to Be a God, Arkady and Boris Strugatsky. First Edition in English.
Hard to Be a God, Arkady and Boris Strugatsky. First US Edition.
Arkady and Boris Strugatsky were Russian science fiction authors who collaborated throughout most of their careers. Their early work was influenced by such Soviet sci-fi luminaries as Ivan Yefremov and Stanisław Lem, but they would go on to develop their own unique style of writing that emerged from the period of Soviet rationalism and was interpreted as works of social criticism.
Hard to be a God is arguably their most well-known novel, published in Russian in 1964 and English in 1973. It tells the story of an undercover operative from Earth's future, Anton, who is sent to an alien planet populated by beings that have not progressed beyond the Middle Ages. The novel's central thesis is that history is often a bloody and cruel affair, with religion and blind faith serving as effective tools of oppression, stifling scientific and technological advancement. This is the scarce first American edition, being the first appearance of the novel in English:
The novel was twice made into a feature film, with the first being in 1989, directed by Peter Fleischmann and starring Werner Herzog. The second adaptation is my favorite, which was released in 2013 and directed by Aleksei German. It's a total trip. Here's the trailer:
More info here:
Whoa! I love this thesis so much. It reminds me of a book by the dear and late Ursula K DelaGuin, called The Dispossesed.
I love film, and have never heard of this movie before. I am thrilled to have the opportunity to view this very soon.
Cheers friend
I need to see the movie, its been on my to watch list a while I hear it is awesome
It's soooo good. Really trippy.
I love the value that religion brought to Western culture, philosophy, and ultimately, civilization. I love history. I'm Oatmeal. Here is an upvote for you here. I like this. I love books. I love learning. I love the #SteemChurch as well. It is also Hard To Be Human.