Such a literary genre as fantasy attracts more and more fans - after all, where else can a writer embody his most incredible ideas, reflect on the unknown and immerse the reader in the world of magic! Russian writers of this genre are also popular, and which of them are the most famous and what you can read from their work - we will tell further.
Arkady and Boris Strugatsky
We will start, of course, with the brothers Arkady and Boris Strugatsky - these are the most famous Soviet and Russian writers in the science fiction genre. During their lives, they wrote many works in which they presented bold, unusual ideas, atypical for their contemporaries and colleagues in the genre - they created some other world.
The works of the Strugatskys are full of humor, but at the same time they are written in a beautiful, highly artistic language, and in addition to a fantastic entourage, all their books have philosophical overtones. It can be said without exaggeration that the Strugatsky brothers and their works are already a separate era of Russian fantastic prose.
The famous works of the Strugatsky brothers include "Monday begins on Saturday", "Picnic on the roadside", "It's hard to be a god", "A billion years before the end of the world" and others.
Sergey Lukyanenko
Sergei Lukyanenko writes fantasy and science fiction books. He is the most popular Russian science fiction writer of the 21st century, and quite fruitful: he publishes one or two books a year, and also writes short stories.
Some of his works were the basis of several modern Russian films - these are the books "Night Watch", "Day Watch" and "Today, Mom!". He wrote scripts for film adaptations himself.
Other popular works of Lukyanenko are considered "Labyrinth of Reflections", "Dancing in the Snow", "Line of Dreams".
Vasily Golovachev
Vasily Golovachev, a laureate and winner of many literary awards, also stands out among Russian science fiction writers of our time. He is the author of such books as The Black Man, The Messenger, The Fracture of Evil, The Scourge of Time, and others. Golovachev is already considered a classic of Russian science fiction.
Most of the science fiction writer's works belong to some cycle, of which Golovachev has as many as seventeen, and the total number of books has already exceeded forty. Golovachev's books are notable for their ease of narration and originality of plots, although fans were not so pleased with the works of the most recent years.
Dmitry Emets
Interesting Russian science fiction writers can also be found among authors oriented towards a children's audience. One of them is Dmitry Yemets, who gained wide popularity thanks to a series of fourteen books for children and teenagers called "Tanya Grotter", created based on the books by J.K. Rowling about the well-known wizard boy.
In parallel with this series, Yemets began to write a series of books about the teenage magician Methodius Buslaev, in which there were already fewer borrowings from Harry Potter. The cycle consists of eighteen books and is also quite popular among young people. And the last, nineteenth book of the cycle should be released in May-June 2016.
Kir Bulychev
The Soviet and Russian writer of the 20th century Kir Bulychev closes our rating of science fiction writers. Like many Russian writers of the science fiction genre, he was inclined to create entire cycles of works involving the same characters. His most famous work was a cycle of stories for children and teenagers about a girl, Alisa Selezneva, who travels through outer space and finds herself in different stories. The cycle is called "The Adventures of Alice" and has more than fifty books.
However, other cycles of Bulychev's books are also known, already oriented towards an adult audience, for example, "Doctor Pavlysh" and "Chronos River".
Bulychev's work may be familiar to our viewers to some extent from the previously popular Soviet children's cartoon "The Secret of the Third Planet" and from the cult five-episode film "Guest from the Future".
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Contrary to popular belief that modern Russian literature is in complete decline, Russian books worth reading continue to appear on store shelves. To make sure that the best Russian novels of the 21st century do not go unnoticed for you, pay attention to our review.
Of course, not only science fiction, but literature in general. His are distinguished by deep psychologism and piercing.
Ray Bradbury is best known for his dark and philosophical cycle of short stories The Martian Chronicles and the post-apocalyptic novel Fahrenheit 451.
Isaac Asimov
Clifford Simak
Clifford Simak is one of the founders of modern American fiction. The author of such iconic works as The City, The Ring Around the Sun, The Goblin Reserve, The Werewolf Principle.
Stanislav Lem
Stanisław Lem is a Polish science fiction writer, futurist and philosopher. Lemma's books have been translated into more than 40. There are many adaptations of his works, among which the most famous is the brilliant "Solaris" by Andrei Tarkovsky.
Robert Heinlein
Robert Anson Heinlein is the only writer to have won as many as five Hugo Awards and is a multiple Nebula winner. Heinlein’s Peru owns the cult “Stranger in Alien”, as well as the excellent “teenage cycle”, which set the standards of science fiction (“Star Beast”, “Martian Podkayne”, “There will be a spacesuit - there will be travel” and others).
Arkady and Boris Strugatsky
The brothers Arkady and Boris Strugatsky are iconic Soviet and, who worked mainly in tandem (although each of them also published independent stories), which have become classics of modern science fiction not only in Russia, but throughout the world. However, the depth and philosophy of their best works (Roadside Picnic, Snail on the Slope, Lame Fate, Doomed City, and others) go far beyond science fiction as a genre.
Kir Bulychev
Kir Bulychev is an author known primarily as the author of a children's and teenage fantasy cycle about the adventures of a girl from the future Alisa Selezneva ("One Hundred Years Ahead", "Girl from the Earth" and others). However, Bulychev also has other works that are distinguished by their invariably light language and excellent sense of humor - for example, the cycle of stories "Martian Potion" about the inhabitants of the fictional city of the great Guslyar.
Sergey Lukyanenko
The best works of Lukyanenko include his early works - "Knights of Forty Islands", "Boy and Darkness".
Sergey Lukyanenko - perhaps the most famous today
Science fiction is books about imaginary worlds. This genre forces writers and readers to go beyond their own universe and most often deals with questions of morality, war, or family values.
The best science fiction works also provide insight into the consequences of innovation, showing the endless possibilities of what can happen when we push the boundaries of science. We bring to your attention a list of the best such books from the Reddit website. Do you agree with the opinion of site users? You can leave your answers in the comments.
Rise from the dust
The novel Rise from the Ashes describes a fairly simple idea: what will happen if everyone who has ever lived on Earth is resurrected? Farmer's masterpiece, which opens the World of the River series, tells the story of the interactions and adventures of both fictional characters and important historical figures.
Torture Master
The Master of Torture is the first novel in Wolfe's Book of the New Sun series, featuring Severian, an apprentice of the Executioner's Guild. Severyan is sent into exile for the betrayal he committed when he helped his beloved woman commit suicide. Thus begins his journey, in which he seeks answers to questions about reality and common sense.
Anathem
Author - Neil Stevenson
Stevenson's novel Anathem is about a society that drives intellectuals into special monasteries to focus solely on research in the name of science. However, the boundaries between monasteries and secular society are gradually blurring in the course of an unforeseen crisis that can affect everyone.
Space Apocalypse
When wealthy archaeologist and scientist Dan Sylvest discovers in 2251 that an ancient civilization on the planet Resurgem has been mysteriously destroyed, he fears that humanity will suffer the same fate.
Cosmic Apocalypse runs several storylines in parallel, some taking place years or even decades before others.
Left hand of darkness
Considered one of the first major novels of so-called female science fiction, The Left Hand of Darkness is about a man's attempts to convince a race of genderless aliens to join an intergalactic alliance.
The Gethenians described by Le Guin and their constantly cold planet Gethen (Gethen), which means "Winter" in translation, is a view of the world, devoid of the usual human duality.
I am a robot
Perhaps fans of Will Smith will be interested to know about the original source: it was Asimov who wrote ten short stories about the futuristic relationship between robots and people.
The central place in the novel "I, Robot" is occupied by Asimov's formulated three laws of robotics - a set of rules for ensuring safety in his fictional reality, which the writer repeatedly uses in his other novels.
Sirens of Titan
Possibly Vonnegut's most famous work is Slaughterhouse 5, but in second place is Titan's Sirens: there is an alien on Titan who, by chance, decides everything that happens on planet Earth, from war to the establishment of moral principles, and becoming, in the end, almost the goal of the existence of mankind.
Contact
Years after his appearance on American TV screens on the PBS program Cosmos, Sagan published the novel Contact, in which the Earth receives several messages from extraterrestrial beings.
Many of the messages are written in the international language of mathematics, which allows people to communicate and, ultimately, interact with representatives of alien life.
Red Mars
In the first novel from the Mars cycle, humanity is just beginning to explore the Red Planet - Mars is subject to terraforming for subsequent colonization.
The entire trilogy spans a period of several centuries. The focus is on several dozen deeply developed characters. The book attempts to answer questions about the scientific, sociological, and possibly ethical implications of human exploration of Mars.
Pandora's Star
In a world where hundreds of planets are connected by a series of wormholes, astronomer Dudley Bowes discovers the disappearance of a pair of stars at a distance of a thousand light-years from Earth. The study of this phenomenon begins.
The book also describes some "guardians of individuality" - a cult that sabotaged Bowes' mission and manipulated an entity called Starflyer.
Midge in the apple of the Lord
In the year 3016, the Second Empire of Man spans hundreds of star systems. This was made possible thanks to the invention of Alderson Drive technology, which makes it possible to overcome gigantic distances at speeds exceeding the speed of light. So far, mankind has never encountered a race of other intelligent beings.
And suddenly, an alien race was discovered near the distant star Mot. People welcome the so-called Moties, but the Moties hide a dark secret that has weighed on their civilization for millions of years.
Passion for Leibovitz
It has been 600 years since the nuclear disaster. A monk from the Order of St. Leibovitz discovers the technology of a great saint, which may be the key to saving humanity - the rejection of bomb shelters and the basis for an atomic bomb.
The book tells about how humanity is re-selected from the dark ages, but then again faces the horrors of nuclear war.
Excession
Two millennia ago, a black star called Excession mysteriously appeared at the edge of space. The star was older than the universe and mysteriously disappeared.
Now she's back, and the diplomat Bir Genar-Hofen must solve the mystery of the lost sun while his race is at war with a dangerous alien civilization.
Starship Troopers
Author - Robert Heinlein
Starship Troopers tells the story of Juan Rico, who decides to join the military forces of the Earth to fight against an alien enemy. The book tells about the rigorous training of soldiers in a military camp, as well as the psychological state of conscripts and fleet commanders.
One of the first great science fiction novels, Starship Troopers inspired many other writers to create military science fiction novels. For example, Heinlein's motives can be traced in Joe Haldeman's novel Infinity War.
Do androids dream of electric sheep?
Author - Philip Dick
Based on the novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? filmed the cult film "Blade Runner". In 2021, after millions of people died during the world war, entire species of living beings were doomed to extinction. So all that is left is to create artificial copies of endangered species: horses, birds, cats, sheep ... and humans.
Androids are so natural that it is almost impossible to distinguish them from real people. But bounty hunter Rich Deckards is trying to do just that - hunt down the androids and then kill them.
World-Ring
Ringworld is the story of 200-year-old Louis Wu, who goes on an expedition to explore an unfamiliar world with his 20-year-old colleague Teela Brown and two aliens.
The book tells about their adventures in the Ring World - a huge mysterious artifact with a length of about 966 million km, orbiting a star, about how people try to uncover the secrets of this world - and escape.
2001: Space Odyssey
Author - Arthur Clark
The best scientists of the Earth are collaborating in research with the cutting-edge HAL 9000 computer, but the machine, made in the image and likeness of the human brain, turns out to be capable of feelings of guilt, neurosis ... and even murder.
Infinity War
Written by a Vietnam War veteran as an allegory of the Vietnam War, Infinity War tells the story of a soldier, William Mandella, who is forced to join the military and leave Earth to fight the mysterious alien race of the Torans.
But due to time distortions, the journey of a soldier takes ten subjective years, while on Earth it takes as much as 700 years. And Mandella ends up returning to a completely different planet.
Avalanche
Hiro Protagonist may seem like nothing more than a pizza delivery man in futuristic Los Angeles, but in the Metaverse he is a famous hacker and samurai warrior.
When a new drug known as Avalanche starts killing his hacker friends in the Metaverse, Hiro must figure out where the dangerous drug came from.
Neuromancer
Case, a former hacker and cyber thief, has lost the ability to enter cyberspace. But one day, his abilities return to him as a result of a miraculous combination of circumstances. He is hired by a mysterious man named Armitage, but during the course of the mission, Case discovers that someone - or something - continues to pull the strings.
Neuromancer was the first novel to win three major science fiction awards: the Hugo, Nebula, and Philip K. Dick Awards.
Hyperion
The Hugo Award-winning novel is the first book in a series about seven travelers who travel to an alien planet to find a mysterious monster called the Shrike and save humanity from certain doom.
Rumor has it that if you stay alive after meeting with the Shrike, then one wish will be granted. The galaxy is on the brink of war and Armageddon, and the seven pilgrims are humanity's last hope.
Base
Foundation is set in a future so far away that humans have forgotten Earth and now live throughout the galaxy.
Everything seems to be fine, but scientist Harry Seldon predicts that the Empire is about to collapse, and humanity will roll back about 30 thousand years ago, into new dark ages. He comes up with a scheme to save the knowledge of the human race in an encyclopedia in order to re-create an empire.
over a number of generations.
Ender `s game
Andrew "Ender" Wiggin believes he was chosen to train to fight an alien race. He is trained to manage the fleet with the help of a computer game that simulates military operations. In fact, this boy is the military genius of the Earth, and it is he who will have to grapple with the "buggers".
In the first book in the Ender's Game series, Ender is only six years old, and we can learn about his first years of training.
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
In the first book in the series, Arthur Dent learns from his friend Ford Prefect, a secret employee of the company behind the interstellar guidebook The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, that the Earth is about to be destroyed.
The friends escape in an alien spaceship, and the book follows their strange journeys through the universe. Also, the novel is filled with quotes from the guide itself, for example, "A towel is perhaps the most valuable thing for a hitchhiker."
Dune
No such list would be complete without a mention of Frank Herbert's Dune, which is to science fiction what The Lord of the Rings is to fantasy.
Herbert created a story about the politics, history, religion and ecological systems of a feudal interstellar empire. Having fallen on the desert planet Arrakis, Paul Atreides turns into a mysterious religious figure - Muad'Dib. He intends to avenge the murder of his father, for which he unleashes a revolution, during which he rises to the imperial throne.
451 degrees Fahrenheit
The dystopian novel tells about the life of a firefighter whose job is not to extinguish the fire, but to kindle it. Guy Montag stands guard over the creation of an ideal world without reading matter, where, according to the state, unnecessary contradictory information is written for modern man. 
Burning books for evening reading, religious, textbooks turns into a kind of purification ritual. A person found behind a book is taken away by a jet of flame. Deprived of emotions, feelings and experiences, the population of this world hurries home to an interactive TV broadcasting empty TV shows. These people see the point only in buying another unnecessary thing.
The protagonist, as the story develops, meets more and more people who resort to various methods of opposing power. Gradually, Guy Montag himself begins to collect preserved precious books.
1984
The Ministry of Truth is one of the main oversight bodies that manages printed publications. Here, workers carefully work on falsification and distortion of real events. The newspapers write only what people would like to read. The main emphasis is on the correction of propaganda articles. Even children slander their own parents because of ideological inconsistency. 
The protagonist of the novel - Winston Smith - is engaged in juggling historical facts, rewriting old news, correcting literature according to the current course. Now it is impossible to dispute that at some points in history it was somehow different - there is no evidence. Wintson himself only pretends to be a supporter of the Party, but deep down he hates and is skeptical of everything.
The protagonist begins to keep a diary in which he splashes out all the emotions, despite the fact that this can lead to hard labor or even death. Winston soon realizes that he is not the only employee in the ministry whose views are opposed to the current government, and who is also used to wearing the mask of a respectable citizen, satisfied with his position.
11/22/63
The assassination of President John F. Kennedy is the loudest, most mysterious and controversial event of the last century. It is still not known for certain who had a hand in this tragedy, and there are only theories that remain unproven. 
The author of the book offers his own version of what happened and sends English teacher Jacob Epping on a journey into the world. The protagonist falls on a difficult mission - the rescue of the 35th President of the United States of America.
Al Templeton insists on meeting with Jake, in which he shares information about a hidden time portal in an underground room. Al offers the main character to complete this business, since he himself is dying. There are several time traveler limitations. The main condition remains that, regardless of being in the past, a couple of minutes pass in the present.
The protagonist of the novel receives as a "legacy" an armful of money from that time, false documents, as well as bookmakers' winning bets. Jacob needs to find out who really was behind the Kennedy assassination and how it was set up.
Every self-respecting book lover must have a personal list "Best Science Fiction Writers". If you don’t have this yet, then we suggest you pay attention to the following authors who are loved, appreciated, and their works are read all over the world.
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov (1920 - 1992) American science fiction writer. Author of about 500 books, both fiction and popular science. Multiple winner of the Hugo and Nebula awards. Some terms from his works, such as robotics, robotics, positron, have entered English and other languages.
Best Books: The Gods Themselves, Foundation, End of Eternity, Bicentennial Man, I, Robot series, Foundation, Lucky Starr and others.
Alexander Belyaev
Alexander Romanovich Belyaev (1884 - 1942) - Russian science fiction writer, one of the founders of Soviet science fiction literature, wrote more than 70 science fiction works, including 13 novels. He is called the Russian Jules Verne.
Best Books: "Professor Dowell's Head", "Island of Lost Ships", "Amphibian Man", "Ariel", "CEC Star", "The Man Who Found His Face", "Heavenly Guest" and others.
Ray Bradbury
Ray Douglas Bradbury (1920 - 2012) was an American science fiction writer who wrote more than eight hundred works in his lifetime. His stories have been the subject of several film adaptations and theatrical productions.
Best Books: Fahrenheit 451, The Martian Chronicles, The Illustrated Man, Trouble Coming, Dandelion Wine, Thunder Came, Dark Carnival, Goodbye Summer! other.
William Gibson
William Gibson (1948-…) - American science fiction writer. Many consider him the father of cyberpunk. After all, it was he who introduced the term “cyberspace” into science fiction, and also because of his novel Neuromancer, which was published in 1984 and sold more than 6 million copies.
Best Books: Trilogy "Cyberspace", "Bridge Trilogy", "Bigend Trilogy", "Difference Machine", a collection of short stories "Burning Chrome" and others.
Sergey Lukyanenko
Sergei Vasilyevich Lukyanenko (1968-...) is one of the most widely read Russian science fiction writers. The writer himself defines the genre in which he writes his novels as "Fiction of hard action" or "Fiction of the Way"
Best Books: series of novels "Patrols", "Borderland", "Island of Russia", "Seekers of the Sky", "Line of Dreams", "Genome", "Labyrinth of Reflections", "Lord from Planet Earth" and others.
Larry Niven
Lawrence van Cott Niven (1938 - ...) - American science fiction writer. Multiple winner of the Hugo, Locus, Dietmar and Nebula awards. His work is fantasy, which combines serious science and theoretical conjectures. Elements of detective and adventure are often found in his works.
Best Books: series "World-Ring", "Integral Trees", "Make a Wish", "Defender", "Gift from the Earth", Calm in Hell and others.
Clifford Simak
Clifford Donald Simak (1894-1988) is considered to be one of the founders of modern American fiction. At various times he was awarded the Hugo and Nebula awards, Jupiter, Locus, Brem Stoker, as well as the title of Grand Master.
Best books: "The City", "Ring Around the Sun", "Goblin Sanctuary", "The Werewolf Principle", "All Flesh Is Grass", "What could be simpler than time?", "Almost Like Humans" and others.
Robert Heinlein
Robert Anson Heinlein (1907-1988) was an American science fiction writer who made an invaluable contribution to the development of the science fiction genre. He is the only one to win five Hugo Awards, a multiple Nebula winner.
Best Books: cycle "History of the Future", "Stranger in a Strange Land", "Starship Troopers", "Farmer in the Sky", "The Man Who Sold the Moon", "Red Planet", "Double Star", "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" and others .
Arkady and Boris Strugatsky
The brothers Arkady and Boris Strugatsky are a famous tandem of writers. Their books are known not only in the CIS, but also far abroad. They also worked individually. The novels of the Strugatsky brothers are rightfully included in the world classics of modern science fiction. Each book by these authors is distinguished by depth and philosophy, which is sometimes lacking in novels of this genre.
Best Books: Roadside Picnic, Snail on the Slope, Lame Fate, Doomed City, It's Hard to Be a God, Monday Starts on Saturday, A Billion Years Before the End of the World, Waves Kill the Wind, and other.
Arthur Clark
Arthur Charles Clark (1917 - 2008) - English writer, scientist, futurist and inventor, and, of course, a cult science fiction writer. His work includes 22 novels, 3 cycles of novels, short stories and adaptations of his books.
Best Books:"Prelude to Space", "Sands of Mars", "The End of Childhood", "Songs of a Distant Earth", "Space Odyssey 2001" Cycle, "Rama" Cycle, "Odyssey of Time" Cycle and others.
Henry Kuttner
The American science fiction and humor writer Henry Kuttner (1915-1958) created works that are classics today. Henry's co-author was his wife Katherine Lucille Moore. Kuttner's books have been published under the pseudonyms Lawrence O'Donnell, Lewis Paget, Keith Hammond, and Will Garth.
Best Books: a series of stories "Hogbeny", the novel "The Dark World", "Fury. The world of darkness. Stories", "Sim Makes Sure", "Five Tales of Gallegher", "Housing", "Mutant", "Mask of Cercea" and others.
William Tenn
The science fiction writer Philip Klass published under the pseudonym William Tenn (1920-2010). The world learned about the talent of the writer after the publication of his first story "Alexander the Bait" in 1946. During a long writing career, Tenn wrote only 2 novels, preferring short stories. For merits in the field of science fiction, William Tenn has repeatedly received awards, including the prestigious Nebula, Locus and Hugo Awards.
Best Books: collections of stories "The Baldezhny Criterion", "Star Carousel", "Invasion" and others.
Vladimir Mikhailov
Mikhailov Vladimir Dmitrievich (1929-2008) - author of numerous works in the fantasy genre. Vladimir Mikhailov began to write humorous stories, but achieved popularity and recognition thanks to science fiction books. The author himself, dreaming of becoming a great poet all his life, considered science fiction a happy accident.
Best Books:"My Brother's Watchman", "People of the Land", "Permanent Krata", "Option I", "Special Necessity" and others.
Frank Herbert
American science fiction writer Frank Herbert (1920-1986) is known to the world, mainly thanks to the chronicles of "Dune". The cycle of these books brought the author awards in the form of the Hugo and Nebula literary awards. The author's first story was "Looking for something?", published in Startling Stories magazine.
Best Books:"Dune", "Dragon in the Sea", "God Makers", "Dosadi Experiment", "Under Pressure", "Hellstrom Hive" and others.
Ivan Efremov
Ivan Antonovich Efremov (1908-1972) - Soviet science fiction writer, paleontologist and thinker. Ivan's knowledge, thanks to his creative potential, resulted in wonderful works of literature. The minor planet Ephraimiana and the mineral efremovite are named after the author.
Best Books:"Andromeda Nebula", "Razor's Edge", "Star Ships", "Thais of Athens", "Ox Hour" and others.
Paul Anderson
Paul William Anderson (1926-2001) became interested in science fiction as a student. Anderson, one of the few writers who has received the title of "Grand Master of Fantasy" Hugo and has been awarded this Award 7 times. The author's debut took place in 1947 with the story "Children of Tomorrow".
Best Books:"Time Patrol", "Space Crusaders", "Operation Another World", "Long Way Home", "Queen of Winds and Darkness" and others.
Ursula Le Guin
The work of Ursula Kroeber Le Guin (1929-2018) is not limited to the science fiction genre. The writer created many children's works, poems and novels, was the author of fantasy books and literary critic. Le Guin wrote her first science fiction story at the age of 11 and continued to delight fans with new works, for many of which Ursula received prestigious awards.
Best Books:"Wizard of Earthsea", "Trilogy", "The Left Hand of Darkness", "Tomb of Atuan", "The Dispossessed", "Planet of Exile" and others.
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One of Vonnegut's most popular novels has haunted fans of his work and other sympathizers for more than 50 years. Some modern performers even put the invention of the protagonist of this book at the head of their work and sing of an element that can freeze all the waters of the world and lead to the death of earthly life. If you still hope to learn the details of the life of a popular pet here, then it is better to pick up another book. After all, as one of the heroes of the work says, “no, to hell, cats, no, to hell, there is no cradle.” Instead, you will get an amazing novel in which the American writer has brought to almost absolute the main themes of his work - the responsibility of scientists for inventions and the problems of the world environmental situation.
In the book of the AST publishing house, in addition to Cat's Cradle, you will find another famous Vonnegut novel, Slaughterhouse Five.
Let the tandem of Boris and Arkady Strugatsky become history long ago, their legacy is alive and continues to grow with new fans. Starting to write at a young age, during their lives they created and released more than a hundred works - from short stories to major fantasy novels. One of them, Roadside Picnic, first saw the light of day in 1972 and almost immediately became a real bestseller. It was translated into almost all living languages and released in two dozen countries, and Andrei Tarkovsky based it on the famous Stalker. Several times, American directors also announced their intentions to film the novel. The last time such a message appeared was in September 2015. Roadside Picnic was also praised by the famous science fiction writer Stanisław Lem, who wrote an afterword to the 1977 German edition. It seems like this alone should be enough to proudly include the novel in your library.
You can’t just take it and mention Stanislav Lem once. Fans of fantasy read his novels literally to holes. This is not surprising: the Polish writer has gained immense popularity among bookworms, and his books have been translated into 41 languages, and sold a total of more than 30 million copies. After publishing a story about the relationship between people and the intelligent ocean, the science fiction writer further strengthened his position. Solaris, published in 1961, greatly influenced many science fiction writers. Boris Strugatsky named it one of the ten best works of the genre. And, it seems, this is justified: the book was translated into 30 world languages and filmed many times, and the echoes of the rational ocean can still be found in the works of modern authors.
It is perhaps very difficult to find a person who has not heard the phrase "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy." Someone watched the series with that name, someone got acquainted with the travels of friends through the film by Garth Jennings, but the story is revealed in more detail in the novel by Adams Douglas. Together with the heroes of the work, filled with elegant humor and an unstoppable flight of fancy, you will make the most incredible flight through the Universe and find out what can happen to the inhabitants of the Earth when the planet itself is destroyed in order to build a space highway. Only in the first months after the release of the novel, 250 thousand copies of this work were sold. Although the book was published in 1979, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy continued to garner awards into our millennium - so, in 2003, the BBC included it in the list of "200 best books", putting it in fourth place.
Fiction is not always space flights, aliens and sentient lakes. Many writers create their own dystopian worlds that are hard to call realism. Think of George Orwell's 1984 or Anthony Burgess's The Lustful Seed. The theme of a totalitarian society could not be ignored by the famous Ray Bradbury, and he did it extremely gracefully. In the novel Fahrenheit 451, he talks about a situation where literature becomes almost dissent, and the secret services burn books along with the houses of their owners. The only thing that is allowed in this world is mass culture, consumer thinking, television shows and everything else that disables the main function of humanity, the function of thinking. Such works are sometimes considered prophetic. Whether Ray Bradbury succeeded in making a prophecy can be found out by looking through the book from cover to cover.
Only the lazy do not know about the events on the planet Arrakis. Films were made about the struggle for the “spice” necessary for flights (even David Lynch swung at the film adaptation) and computer games were made, and the original story, the novel Dune, became one of the most famous fantastic sagas of the 20th century. In the novel, Frank Herbert combined the fantastic with the philosophical, raising many important issues: ecology, politics, and more. This chronicle of the distant future has been translated into dozens of languages. Only in Russia there are several translation options. One of the most artistically valuable and close to the original is the work of Pavel Vyaznikov. In it, the author adapted the source text so gracefully that the reader can literally touch the planet Arrakis.
One short story in a series of soft fiction turned into a novel, and one novel which has become the basis for numerous theatrical productions and film adaptations around the world. All this - "Flowers for Algernon." Daniel Keyes took life events as the basis for his work. The boy, for whom the writer taught at a school for children with disabilities, turned into the main character of the book, and the English poet, who lived half his life with a mental disorder, became a guinea pig. Opening the book, the reader seems to be peeping through the keyhole behind the fate of the hero, because it is written in the form of diaries. In them, a young man goes to an experiment to improve intelligence, where he meets the first test subject, the mouse Algernon. In a year, the hero from a nearby floor washer turns into a scientist. But the experiment has the opposite effect.
