Hard to be a god
by Arkadii Strugatskii, Arkady and Boris Strugatsky · first published 2014
70% recommend30% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Allegorical Soviet-era SF about an advanced observer among a medieval society, read as a meditation on the Prime Directive and how hard it is to help well. Praised as haunting, poignant, and a good entry to the authors.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
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On that subject, an absolutely must-read book is "Hard To Be God" (by Strugatsky; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_to_Be_a_God ), an absolutely brilliant meditation on the whole Prime Directive issue (basic thesis: it's harder to bring in positive influence than it seems, thus the title)
on “Cultural Imperialism, Technology, and OLPC” ↗…something working as programmer, when one retired military guy joined the company as DBA. We discussed science fiction, I was fond of Clark, and he mentioned Strugatsky brothers. I started reading it, "It's hard to be a god" was my first book. Then I got swallowed. After that I read "Tachmasib", "Snail on a Slope", "Small boy", "Waves calm down the Wind", "Roadside Picknick", "Dead alpinist Inn", ... [1], basically everything…
on “How the Strugatsky brothers’ science fiction went from utopian to dystopian” ↗"Hard to be a God" of Strugatsky Brothers. "Monday Begins on Saturday", circa 1965, of the same authors. That is a satiric story full of brilliant humor about programmer (main hero) in Scientific Research Institute of…
on “Ask HN: Great fiction books that have had a positive impact on your life?” ↗This is by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, who were contemporaries of Lem. FWIW by favorite Strugatsky novels were Hard to Be a God, and The Doomed City.
on “The Truth, by Stanisław Lem (1964)” ↗Roadsise Picnic and The Snail on the Slope are IMO two of their best books (A. B. Strugatsky). I really liked others like Monday starts on Saturday or It's hard to be a God. Sci Fi by Ursula k. Le Guin is also written from a very different perspective. Earthsea cycle, which is more fantasy, but unike any other. Also the book on the planet where people marry in quadruplets,…
on “Ask HN: Sci-fi recommendations by non-western authors?” ↗If I had to pick three books that made me who I am, I would add Ask A Foolish Question by Robert Sheckley [0] and Hard to Be a God by Strugatsky brothers [1]. Those two are more about humility and imperialism than learning, though. [0] https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/33854 [1] https://content.cosmos.art/media/pages/library/hard-to-be-a-...
on ““Learning how to Learn” will be next generation's most needed skill” ↗…Yugoslavia), but their books were mostly unknown to us. I discovered them as a kid by a pure chance. I was in a city library, bored (no Internet back then), and had no idea which book to rent... and the title "Hard to be a God" caught my eye. Story seemed interesting enough and it was marked as sci-fi, so I got it to see if it's any good. And well, yes it was, very good, one of my fav books to this day, in matter of fact.
on “How the Strugatsky brothers’ science fiction went from utopian to dystopian” ↗Most of their novels are good read. Especially "Hard to Be a God", "Snail on the Slope", "The Ugly Swans", "The Inhabited Island", and, of course, "The Roadside Picnic". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arkady_and_Boris_Strugatsky Actually, it was very interesting phenomena,…
on “'Mountaineer' Is a Must-Read of Soviet Sci-Fi” ↗…published over the past fifteen years or so with epilogues written by Boris covering the censorship process. I would recommend beginning with "The Dead Mountaineer's Inn," which I started with, although "Hard to be a God" and "Monday Begins on Saturday" are more strongly allegorical. I read their entire catalogue after reading a book review last year and becoming (mildly) obsessed.
on “Bringing Chinese Science Fiction to the West” ↗…Kopp, Serguey Kirsanov and Igor Knyazev to literally hundreds of $2-4$ offers on litres.ru. Interpreting audiobooks is an art. Some audiobooks are great performances that influence popular culture, like "Hard to be a god", starring Leonid Yarmolnik. Vlad Kopp gathers concert halls for his live reading performances. Igor Knyazev has a cult following. If there is an example of copyright stifling culture, this is it. Russians…
on “Are Audiobooks as Good for You as Reading?” ↗…horizon fast (even when it is supposedly advanced humans and society of the the future and when presented with tremendously wonderful new aspects of reality) - that goes through several Strugatskis works (Hard to be a God, Roadside Picnic, Anthill, The Waves Extinguish the Wind)
on “Reading Soviet Sci-Fi at the End of the World” ↗…aren't good as they're translated from (I think) German, not Russian, but the new direct translations from Olena Bormashenko are MUCH better, they flow so much better. Stay away from the old ones. Get Hard To Be A God, or maybe Stalker. Also seconding Borges, and perhaps Umberto Eco, and Hesse's The Glass Bead Game.
on “Ted Chiang's Soulful Science Fiction” ↗…City was the original candidate for that, but was too long to fit - that's also available on SF Masterworks. If you want to see where Iain M Banks extracted a good quarter of his ideas for the Culture, "Hard to be a God" is a decent read.
on “Chernobyl's 'stalker' subculture” ↗…want a more serious read about that kind of world while Dying Earth is more of a collection of (very) humorous and whimsical short stories about a bizarre setting and it's even more bizarre inhabitants. Hard to be a God was a good read I enjoyed and feels like it falls into this category as well, from the point of the "higher beings." A lot of famous early pulp fantasy didn't make as much of a concrete distinction between…
on “The Lost Universe: NASA's Tabletop Role-Playing Game Adventure” ↗It's really one of the most haunting books I've ever read. "Hard to be a God" is also very poignant.
on “Sci-fi books that you may never have heard of, but definitely should read” ↗