Arkady Strugatsky

Boris Strugatsky

Anton is an undercover operative from future Earth, who travels to an alien world whose culture has not progressed beyond the Middle Ages. Although in possession of far more advanced knowledge than the society around him, he is forbidden to interfere with the natural progress of history. His place is to observe rather than interfere - but can he remain aloof in the face of so much cruelty and injustice ...'

Hard to Be a God

Sarah Escorsa

👃 A Smelly Medieval Times Are Smelly Buddy Read with Evgeny and Elena 👃

Actual rating: 4.5 stars

So. Take some undercover operatives/historians from a future Shangri-La-type, advanced civilization. Send them to observe and study a planet that resembles Earth in the Super Fun Middle Ages (SFMA™). Strictly forbid them to interfere with the delightfully boorish puny locals’ puny affairs, regardless of how desperate/bad/fished up/morally reprehensible/choose all that apply the situation is. What do you get? A bunch of guys with godlike-powers on the verge of a nervous breakdown.



More or less, yes. By the way, Kirkie, I hear that the whole “thou shalt not interfere, NO, though shalt NOT” business is reminiscent of your Prime Directive Thingie (PDT™). Maybe you should consider applying for a consulting job with the above-mentioned reluctant god wannabes. Looks like they could use some advice and stuff. 

Our main character (real name Anton, covert name Rumata) is slightly on the brink of such a breakdown. A little. Well, the poor guy is no longer on the brink, really. He has been on this lovely feudal paradise for five years, and is positively swimming in neurasthenia. And fast developing wonderfully bipolar tendencies, too. It’s no wonder, to be honest. I mean, had I been in his place, I would have unleashed the crustaceans on those filthy, uncivilized alien lowlives (aka the “scientific specimens”) a mere five minutes after setting foot on that silly, backward planet. But Rumata has a heart, and I don’t, so he didn’t, but I would have. Oh yes, most definitely. Believe me, these medieval alien lab rats (or is it alien medieval lab rats? I forget) really deserve to die a deathly deadly death. Why, you ask? Well mostly because:

1)	Their complete lack of personal hygiene is absolutely unacceptable and thoroughly revolting. (“My kingdom for a soap bar!” is reported to have said Rumata when taking his last distressfully bubble-free bath.)
2)	Underwear conundrums *shudders*
3)	Unwashed nymphs who reek of body odor mixed with heavy perfume (yummy).
4)	Assorted, um, you know, exotic smells and stuff.



You could say that, yes.

Rumata, although concerned about these stinky predicaments, seems to be a great deal more troubled by local habits and customs I myself find quite charming and delightfully quaint: OTT violence, sex and booze, for example. Always a winning combination in my nefarious world, it is apparently not looked upon very kindly in Rumata’s Utopia-like homeland. (Some people are really weird.) Then there’s the whole, hey-why-don’t-we-turn-our-underdeveloped-medieval-paradise-into-a-feudal-facism-dreamland thingie, which I personally think is pure genius. Rumata, what with his disgusting ethics and repulsive decency, finds this a little distasteful, obviously. (The guy can be such a virtuous bore sometimes *eyeroll*) And doesn’t react too well when the local barbarian nutcases lovely natives start persecuting scientists and scholars, and basically eradicating anyone with an IQ score higher than 2. (I employed both methods myself during the Shrimpy Inquisition of 1256, and they worked wonders, just so you know. Well they worked wonders for me, obviously. Not for puny humans.) 

Anyway, all this despicable shit goes down these positive changes are brought about, and they don’t really sit well with poor Rumata. How can an appallingly well-intended, principled guy like him watch these pathetic little not-so-green men feeble alien creatures be ruthlessly oppressed and callously slaughtered and not act, as he was ordered to, I ask you? Well he can’t, obviously. Hence the near-nervous breakdown, slight bipolarity and minor mental instability.

 

Hey, Rumata! How’s it going? Found any soap yet?

And then what happens, you ask? Rumata kinda sorta loses spoiler spoiler spoiler, and kinda sorta becomes spoiler spoiler spoiler. And then what else? Why spoiler spoiler spoiler, DUH.

➽ Nefarious Last Words (NLW™): this is original. This is thought-provoking. This is funny. This is dramatic. This is fast-paced. And this is entertaining as fish. Need I say more? Didn’t think so. (view spoiler)[
  

  

  
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P.S. Read the Olena Bormashenko translation of this book you must, for utterly crappy all the others are. You are most welcome.

Anton is an undercover operative from future Earth, who travels to an alien world whose culture has not progressed beyond the Middle Ages. Although in possession of far more advanced knowledge than the society around him, he is forbidden to interfere with the natural progress of history. His place is to observe rather than interfere - but can he remain aloof in the face of so much cruelty and injustice ...?

Hard To Be A God

intensely well written with a unique style, deep character stories and a fascinating analysis of the human mind. best book i’ve ever read.

Bryan Alexander

What would it be like to live in a world far back on the historical track, when you have access to an advanced civilization's powers?

This is a classic science fiction question. It might be most famous from Star Trek's Prime Directive. Iain Banks explored it in at least one novel. It's present in many time travel narratives, when people explore the past.

In Hard to Be a God the Strugatsky brothers offer their take, and the result is a powerful novel.

It takes place on an Earthlike world peopled by what are effectively humans, living in a medieval society. Our point of view character is from Earth, which has attained a semi-utopian existence (part of the author's Noon Universe). Anton/"Don Rumata" is an agent for a historical society, assigned to observe this backwards civilization, but not to interfere (a la Star Trek). 

The tension of the novel comes from the awful psychological pressure of that mission. The Strugatskii vividly depict a hellish society. Even though they carefully add comic and lovely elements, the Kingdom of Arkanar is no charming Tolkien setting. It's a shambles of cruelty and squalor, ruthlessly quashing the human spirit and fighting hard to block advances. There are fascist aspects, in fact, and named as such. We can sympathize with Anton's desire to intervene, to help, to uplift.

Anton's internal struggle is nicely interwoven with emerging political plots. I don't want to spoil them here, but there are many schemes in play. Our hero has to observe them and try, somehow, to mitigate their worst effects. Like classic spy stories, he starts becoming his cover story.

Hard to Be a God draws on many science fictional tropes. The two worlds idea is deeply familiar, of course. The gap between advanced and not so advanced societies dates back centuries. The critique of various forms of medievalism is another sf theme - indeed, you can read the book as science fiction arguing against fantasy's love for an imaginary middle ages.

There are, of course, Soviet dimensions to Hard to Be a God. On the one hand we can read it as a committed work of Soviet art. The main character is heroic, Russian, based in Moscow; his understanding of history is clearly that of the USSR's, with societies marching forward along a Marxist track. He does not criticize his own world, save to wish it could act more effectively to help others. There is a light Leninist aspect, with Anton insisting on the vital importance of intellectuals in advancing history. No country can develop without science... Without arts and general culture, the country loses its capacity for self-criticism, begins to encourage faulty tendencies, starts to constantly spawn hypocrites and scum, develops consumerism and conceit in its citizens, and eventually again becomes a victim of its more sensible neighbors. Persecute bookworms all you like, prohibit science, and destroy art, but sooner or later you'll be forced to think better of it... (146)And there are echoes to mid-century Soviet foreign policy, which increasingly reached out to the developing world in struggle with the United States. Moreover, religion appears solely as a force for ignorance, power, and brutality.

On the other hand, the novel's plot doesn't fit the historical theory. Arkanar does not advance at all. No renaissance is evident. Intellectuals are useless. In fact, (view spoiler)[the climactic social revolution is actually a theocratic coup, arguably making things even worse. The best we can see is the hero saving one good person while losing another. And he apparently regains his utopian humanity, according to the last lines. (hide spoiler)] Perhaps the book quietly argues that the Soviet model of history is not a reliable one. Further, the novel's antagonist, Don Reba, suggests for me Stalin's head of secret policy, Beria. And the quote from the preceding paragraph easily describes various forms of Soviet repression.

On a related note, Anton and one Dr. Budach argue about the effects of vast power and society in a dialogue late in the book. Budach presses for intervention, calling on a state's might to reform a population. Anton parries this by showing how each such effort would fail or backfire. The conclusion is remarkably suspicious of authority, recalling anarchist thinking as well as science fiction works like Watchmen or LeGuin's Lathe of Heaven.

I haven't read this in Russian, so I can't speak to the translation's quality. The prose is very engaging. As befits a thoughtful, even philosophical sf novel, there are many reflective passages worth dwelling upon:"The essence of man," Budach said, chewing slowly, "lies in his astonishing ability to get used to anything. There's nothing in nature that man could not learn to live with... Probably God, as he was creating man, guessed the torment he was condemning him to and gave him an enormous reserve of strength and patience. It is difficult to say whether this is good or bad. (205)At the same time the text pulses with energy. Descriptions are vibrant, character interactions fascinating, and the whole moves forward quite engagingly.

I hope the 21st century remembers and enjoys novels like this, as the Soviet experiment recedes into the past.

Hard to Be a God

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