Hard to be a God (Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, 1964)

I remember, back in high school when we were tasked with reading The Master and Margarita. Teenage me loved this book about devil and demonic stuff. Then they told us that all of that cool stuff is just a cover to hide the real meaning of the book: commentary on the Soviet Union and communism¹.

Hard to be a God is a novel by the famous Strugatsky brothers. In the undefined future, humans are capable of space travel. A group of scientists in sent to an alien planet to observe and report back. The planet is populated by beings living in a society that reminds us of the Middle Ages. However, the power shifts and a violent, hateful revolution starts taking place. Intelligentsia is killed by angry crowd, and Don Reba getting more and more powerful. That alien world is going into revolution. Coincidentaly, this is how communism overtook Russia.

This is a hard book to get through. The subject is very dark, and the form doesn’t make it any easier. One of the biggest problems here is: should observers interfere The reader wants a gun-blazing ride on Don Reba, but would it be ethical? The observers have guns and flying machines. They are able to crush anyone. But this would only lead to more bloodshed and a circle of violence.

Which is another interesting aspect of this book - mediation on human condition. Violence is inherent to human race. We see it all the time, and the writers put a mirror to our faces. How many wars were fought not for survival, but for power? World War I was called “The Great War” and was supposed to be the last war. Humanity saw the absolute worse it can do, definitely we will learn from it. We know how it ended.

Hard to be God is, most definitely, an intelligent SciFi novel.

But I was not invested emotionally. It’s not visceral book. It is disgusting, but you comprehand it more with your mind than heart.

At the same time, it’s an easy read. You could think that with this subject matter, the book would be offputting, but it’s not. I had problems following names at some point, as every male character tends to be Don freaking something, but that’s all. It’s an ejoyable read, if you don’t focus on what’s it actually about.

But when you do start thinking about the meaning, it becomes a completely different beast. Authors don’t spare the viewer. There is a scene, where two young adepts are talking about torture methods, like it was nothing. It’ almost funny, if it wasn’t so real.

Hard to be a God is a short book, which is a great but challenging piece of art. I’d call it a masterpiece, if I were emotionally invested. As it stands now, it’s closer to Gulag Archipelago in a form of story. Highly recommended, even if this would be your first encounter with Russian speculative fiction.

Movies based on Hard to be a God are also amazing!