Soviet Science Fiction

I picked this up at a used bookstore based on the cover alone, and for the chance of a glimpse into the Soviet mindset. From a literary perspective, there’s not much to recommend these stories. They’re fairly standard Golden Age scifi, with all the clumsiness that that entails, plus the added awkwardness of being a work in translation. Sadly, of the six stories only two are of any interest; a pair of linked stories theorizing that the Tunguska explosion was a spacecraft from Mars. The theory that the Martians must be advanced Socialists come to peacefully trade for Greenland’s icecap is a rather nice antidote to the standard alien invasion story, but aside from the names, there’s little that’s particularly “Soviet” about these stories. The only recognizable name in the collection is the Strugatsky brothers, and they’re wasted with a bog standard ‘robot gains self-awareness/goes berserk’ golem fable.

On the other hand, as a historical artifact this collection is quite neat. Released in 1962, at the height of the Cold War, and with a decent introduction by Isaac Asimov, it serves as a reminder of an attempt to build international bridges at a time of immense paranoia.