The Inhabited Island

by Boris Strugatsky and Arkady Strugatsky

Book Overview

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...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1613735979
• ISBN13: 9781613735978
• Release Date: February 2020
• Publisher: Chicago Review Press
• Length: 416 Pages
• Weight: 1.06 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.5" x 8.4"

Customer Reviews

Timeless classic

An excellent book for all times, cultures, and societies, "Prisoners of Power" (the original is called "The Inhabited Island") is about every person's right to be free and about the responsibilities that come with freedom. A hero from Utopian society finds himself in the world where he is nearly a Superman, but in this world he doesn't know the difference between good and evil, and a mistake in judgement can cost him more than his own life. This is one of my favorite books. Unfortunately, the English translation misses some finer points of the book. I can only hope that with the new version of the book, where the authors restored the changes made (I should say inflicted) by the Soviet censorship, English-speaking readers will get a translation that's closer to the spirit of the original.

The best Sci-fi I have read!

This might be not the best book Strugatzky wrote (The Picnic, 1000 years till the end of the world, Monday starts in Saturday...), but it is the beginning of thye "progessors" saga, the best thing Sci-fi. I've read Zelazny, Azimov, Simak, Lem, Windam... But maybe only Zelazny is a step close to Strugazky. It is not only the fantazsy they have... it's the way they describe the mankind, they way it goes, the mistakes we make. Look around, you will see how sad and small and how great we could be... It is not great to be powerful and good, the great is being the weaker and still be good... If you can find the book- read it and you will need more.

truly excellent work!

I recommend this book to everyone. I only want to say that the other reviews here give away some things from the book that you really ought to discover on your own, at the time that the authors planned for you to do. If you can, just take my word for it and read this book, read only the next review by a reader from Nashville, the others disclose too much. Of the great many sides of this excellent book is its enigma, it's a great detective story in a way where you're on the mission, along with the central character, to understand what's going on there. So it has action in it, it has philosophy, it deals with moral, freedom, responsibility. And it's full of imagination and unique perspective. After you've read the book, you can come back here and read the reviews, they're very good.

PRISONERS OF POWER

I was Strugatsky reader since I was 9. And as a child, I discovered an interesting thing: authors use a fantastic factor to describe a fenomenon present in the everyday environment. Being marooned on the "Inhabited Island"(original title), like the chief character of this marvelous book, I can state under oath that an "irradiation" they invented in the contemporary society is rather irrelevant: people turn into robots all by themselves. Read this book and look around,- you won't regret it.

These authors have gigantic imagination....!!!

Brother's Strugatsky's language is as pure as a spring water, so if you ever get chance to read anything by these authors you will open for yourself a completely 'NEW WORLD' , a world where you would never refuse to live in ! World of Space Exploration , World with so called 'progressors' people who traveled around the universe ...discovering , searching and helping other planets and civilizations out there in space.So this book is one of these amazing, astonishing and just great book , it is a book about a world which was thought to be by its inhabitants 'turned upside down' ... (on earth if you watch a boat travel you will soon discover that it is disappearing into horizon , because our planet is spheroid ...but there on the planet where the story takes place the boat went up , and not down ) that it a story which you will always remember !!!! READ IT AND YOU WILL NEVER REGRET IT !