- Paperback: 240 pages
- Publisher: Collier Macmillan Ltd (4 Sep 1980)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0020072406
- ISBN-13: 978-0020072409
- Product Dimensions: 20.8 x 14 x 1.8 cm
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,405,882 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
| ||||||||||||||||||
Did you know you can trade in your old books for an Amazon.co.uk Gift Card to spend on the things you want? Plus, get an extra £5 Gift Certificate when you trade in books worth £10 or more before June 30, 2012. Visit the Books Trade-In Store for more details. |
Product details |
More About the Author
Suggested Tags from Similar Products(What's this?)Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product)
|
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
THE UGLY SWANS is definitely a change of pace for the Strugatsky brothers, a novel that is powerful, bittersweet, ironic and humourous all at once. The storyline comes across as deceptively lightweight compared to the mindbending fantasies of other classic Strugatsky novels but this makes THE UGLY SWANS no less compelling to read than the others for it has a fascinating content all of its own. Indeed to the casual reader, it will come across as something of a pastiche of CHILDHOOD'S END, THE MIDWICH CUCKOOS and 1984.
The world of THE UGLY SWANS is set in an unnamed town somewhere in an unnamed country presided over by a Big Brother-like 'Mr President'. In this seemingly twilight world, mysterious circumstances have led to two years of non-stop rainfall and transformed the town's schoolchildren into a cadre of twisted mental geniuses with seemingly no humanity, no attachments or sentimentalities. The childrens' metamorphosis appears to be linked to the mysterious and unexplained appearance of 'yellow leprosy' sufferers, known to townspeople as 'slimies'. These 'slimies' in turn seem to be in some form of constant telepathic coomunication with the children. Caught in the middle between the government and the outcasts are the decadent, nonconformist liberal intelligentsia represented by the likes of Victor Banev, a famous author (and father of one of the children) now banished by the government to the unnamed town. Banev's life now more or less consists of drunken orgies with his lover Diana at the local health resort and endless philosophical discussions with the local sanitorium director Yul Golem at the hotel where he resides. When the showdown between the government and the outcasts finally comes about, Banev is again caught in the middle. But the outcome is entirely different from what Banev expected ......
This novel appears to be not so much about 'alien' invasion as it is an allegory about the right of the individual to choose, for the individual to have the right to think for themselves outside of the societal norm. There is a definite subtle, backhanded swipe at the 'cult of personality' which was so much part and parcel of the leadership of the former Soviet Union (this would have been particularly relevant upon the book's publication, being written during the Brezhnev era). Despite the seemingly positive portrayal of the children as some form of vanguard spearheading a revolution against the government, the Strugatskys do, at times, appear to question the motives and aims of the children with subtle suggestions of how a new world order founded by the children might just as well prove to be as equally cold and inhuman as that of the old order. Ultimately what the Strugatskys appear to be saying is that there is no such thing as a definitive 'truth', that everyone has a different concept of what represents 'truth'.
To balance out the unusual storyline, there is a crackling wit and humour throughout which makes for most enjoyable reading. Banev's conversations with the doctor honoris causae Rem Quadriga are some of the most amusing conversations I have ever read in contemporary science fiction, in many ways a cut above many a Western science fiction novel. The combination of an unusual storyline with crackling wit and humour without a doubt make for a winner of a novel. Definitely all the more reason why THE UGLY SWANS makes for essential reading by the keen reader of science fiction.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
6 reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
one of their best
9 Jun 1999
Format:Hardcover
This one as well as "Les" is a part of a double novel, so it would be better to read the whole book. What I believe is important to see in "Ugly Swans", as well, as in other Strugatskii books, is not the aliens and another version of future, but people that are all around us and our own world. After all, it's not forseeing the future that the authors were trying to do, but to describe what was going on around them. I also believe that Strugatskii books are universal and go far beyond exploration of any one event in history. Through Science Fiction they make us look into ourselves and open our eyes to some most urgent issues of today. Unfortunately these issues change slowly. The content itself is somewhat dark, but Strugatskii were optimists: in the end the beautiful dream comes true. I think I would really like to live in the kind of future that brothers Strugatskii described in many of thier books.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
One of the best!
14 April 1999
Format:Hardcover
I was looking for a copy for a friend, since I don't want to loan mine out. I'd never get it back! This is really a wonderful book. I first read it about twenty years ago, and have read it four or five times since. After each read there is more to digest. I can't believe it's out of print.
Definitive Strugatsky brothers novel; don't miss!
3 April 1997
Format:Hardcover
This strange, ironic, and oddly sweet Strugatsky bros. novel follows the same theme as "Childhood's End," while also providing
the (non-Russian) reader with a good appreciation of the different requirements Soviet writers faced in the Brezhnev era.
It's a cracker of a novel, with much partying and vodka-drinking, government corruption, and chilling glimpses of an alien race that, in the classic vein, are "stealing" our children for their own unknown (possibly malevolent?) purposes.
Of course, there is the standard eye-wash about freeing society from the "cult of personality" (a veiled reference not only to Kruschev but also, I believe, to Stalin's cultural grip), but the slogans don't get in the way of the story. Which story is stunning
.
Like the best Strugatsky bros.' work, this book reads like a story told to you by a Russian friend, who is somewhat jaded, intelligent enough to know how little he understands, and who personifies the Muscovite spirit of "smoke, drink and eat now, who knows what will happen tomorrow..."
the (non-Russian) reader with a good appreciation of the different requirements Soviet writers faced in the Brezhnev era.
It's a cracker of a novel, with much partying and vodka-drinking, government corruption, and chilling glimpses of an alien race that, in the classic vein, are "stealing" our children for their own unknown (possibly malevolent?) purposes.
Of course, there is the standard eye-wash about freeing society from the "cult of personality" (a veiled reference not only to Kruschev but also, I believe, to Stalin's cultural grip), but the slogans don't get in the way of the story. Which story is stunning
.
Like the best Strugatsky bros.' work, this book reads like a story told to you by a Russian friend, who is somewhat jaded, intelligent enough to know how little he understands, and who personifies the Muscovite spirit of "smoke, drink and eat now, who knows what will happen tomorrow..."
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Listmania!
|
|
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
