The Inhabited Island

By Arkady Strugatsky, Boris Strugatsky and Andrew Bromfield

When Maxim Kammerer, a young space explorer from twenty-second-century Earth, crash-lands on an uncharted world, he thinks of himself as a latter-day Robinson Crusoe. Eager to establish first contact with the planet's humanlike inhabitants, he finds himself increasingly entangled in their primitive way of life. After his experiences in their nightmarish military, criminal justice, and mental health systems, Maxim begins to realize that his sojourn on this radioactive and war-scarred world will not be a walk in the park.

The Inhabited Island is one of the Strugatsky brothers' most popular and acclaimed novels, yet the only previous English-language edition (Prisoners of Power) was based on a version heavily censored by Soviet authorities. Now, in a sparkling new edition by award-winning translator Andrew Bromfield, this land-mark novel can be newly appreciated by both longtime Strugatsky fans and new explorers of the Russian science fiction masters' astonishingly rich body of work.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Chicago Review Press
• Release date: Feb 4, 2020
• ISBN: 9781613735985

Reviews for The Inhabited Island

[chrisriesbeck · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The set up is an intergalactic explorer crashes on a colonized planet. His ship blows up, destroying his rescue beacon. That background becomes pretty much irrelevant until the very end of the book. What does matter is that for all his youth and naïveté, he has physical talents that will crucial for his survival as he learns about the working of the societies he encounters. There are many secrets about him and this world that are only gradually revealed. This is primarily a book of ideas, revealed through events. There are a few info dumps, but they are kept under control. The two main characters definitely develop, though characterization is not a key element. Recommended.

[jigarpatel-6 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

An exquisite mix of Non-Stop, Dune and 1984.

[thecrow2 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A man from an utopian Earth shipwrecked in a dystopian planet where he finds himself at the middle of local politics and the resistance... The Strugatsky brothers' book was banned in the Soviet Union and they had a good reason for that...