# SF Author Boris Strugatsky Dead

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sf-author-boris-strugatsky-dead/641640>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Created:** [November 20, 2012, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sf-author-boris-strugatsky-dead/641640 "2012-11-20T20:06:09Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\
**Post date:** [November 20, 2012, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sf-author-boris-strugatsky-dead/641640/1 "2012-11-20T20:06:09Z")

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> **[Boris Strugatsky: Russia mourns death of sci-fi writer – even Vladimir Putin](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/nov/20/boris-strugatsky-russia-sci-fi-writer)**
>
> Russian president pays tribute to author critical of totalitarianism of Soviet system and growing authoritarianism since 2000

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**Author:** ![Meurglys](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/258eb7/32.png) [@Meurglys](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meurglys)\
**Post date:** [November 22, 2012, 1:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sf-author-boris-strugatsky-dead/641640/2 "2012-11-22T13:26:28Z")

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What I wrote elsewhere (with minor edits)

With his brother Arcadi (1925 – 1991) they wrote a string of interesting, usually banned sf novels in the USSR from the late 1950s through to the late 80s.  
My first encounter with their work was a novella in the [Vortex](http://www.flickr.com/photos/17270214@N05/8077063330/in/photostream/) collection of Soviet SF which was called The Second Invasion From Mars. In a small town on the steppe, news of an alien landing is more like gossip and facts are hard to come by. I really enjoyed it and have read it several times. There’s also another translation of it titled The Second Martian Invasion.  
Their best known work was the novel _Roadside Picnic_, later filmed by Andrei Tarkovsky as _Stalker_, which was also the title of the computer game also later developed. In it, there are several quarantined sites around the world at which aliens have landed briefly and left behind various inexplicable items, much as humans might leave rubbish behind after a picnic…

[Other novels](http://www.flickr.com/photos/17270214@N05/8077061066/), tend towards the fantastical as they portray weird convoluted bureaucracies that varied scientists have to negotiate to achieve anything.  
The last major work of theirs I read was _The Snail on the Slope_, which was apparently published as two separate stories and only when it was published as a book with their chapters alternating did people realise it was a single piece! It’s probably my favourite of the dozen or so novels of theirs I’ve read.

Arkadi died over 20 years ago; now Boris. Oh, well, maybe I’ll go re-read 2nd Martian Invasion. Or I might spring for the new translation of _Roadside Picnic_…