Omon Ra

Omon Ra is dark. How dark? Think Kafka shooting krokodil in a Siberian prison camp imagined by J.G. Ballard and then Iain Banks devours the whole thing with a black hole. Sub-infra-black doesn’t even begin to describe how dark it is. That said, this is the wonderful and magical story of a young man who dreams of flight and joins the cosmonaut program, only to learn that the Soviet space program is less than it seems. It’s a meditation on the theater of Soviet heroism, Stakhanovite exceptionalism, and the sacrifice of young dreamers on the altar of Party prestige.