Half a Life, and Other Stories [Hardcover]

Kirill Bulychev (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover
• Publisher: MacMillan Publishing Co.; First American Edition edition (1977)
• ASIN: B002DX0IEU
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the Best, February 1, 2000

By 

Sergio Flores (Orange, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Half a life, and other stories (Loose Leaf)

This novella and collection of short stories by the Russian author is one of my favorite science fiction works. He is unusally clear, original, poignant, and human. For a man who wrote this when Communism was not only Law in Russia, but Religion as well, his prose lacks the political pollution so typical of inferior Russian works that had to be approved by a Ministry before they were printed. Bulychev isn't given to flights of fancy to mask ignorance. His science is proven; his extrapolation of scientific ideas is believable; and his stories are marvellous. To those who enjoyed "The Ice People" by Rene Barjavel, Bulychev should be equally good. If not, well, at least I hope that "Half a Life" and the stories "Red Deer, White Deer," and "May I Please Speak to Nina?" (my favorite ones) will have still proven to be good enough. Happy reading.

5.0 out of 5 stars Human, October 4, 2005

By 

Drubetski Tanya "TAHbKA" (Israel) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Half a life, and other stories (Loose Leaf)

I'd say a little bit uncharacteristic book for Bulychev, between the standard scifi (and qiute boring) "Passage", deliriously funny "Intergalactical Police" and childish "Alisa".

My favorite stories here are "May I speak to Nina" which is well described by "Rottenberg's rotten book review" and "The first layer of Memory": the group of speleologists get trapped in a cave. One of them manages to get out, but looses consciousness before he gets to people. He is found some time later. His brain is transplanted to someone else, who starts recalling the already dead speleologist's thoughts - first to visit the old father of one of the guys from the group and give him a cure they found in the cave, and only then he is able to recall where is the exit he found to leave the cave and brings the people to rescue the rest of the team.

In general all the stories are very short (sometimes 3-4 pages short) and, I guess, the word that describes them is "human".

5.0 out of 5 stars Intelligent life on Earth, August 14, 2000

By 

Rottenberg's rotten book review (nyc) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Half a life, and other stories (Loose Leaf)

Possibly the only time that Sci-Fi made me cry, "Half a Life" is a collection of stories and a novells about normal sounding people experiencing the viscitudes that seemed reserved (in convetional sci-fi) for steely-eyed heroes or hyper-intelligent engineers who blather in incomprehensible technobabble. The heroin of "Half a Life", a human taken prisoner by alien robots, wanted nothing more after WWII, than a quiet life on some Oblast when she finds herself the latest addition to a menagerie of creatures from different planets. Instead of adjusting to prison life, she humanizes her fellow prisoners and seizes control of the means of freedom. The heroic explorers of "Red Deer, White Deer" look past their prejudices against the brutal ape creatures of a newly discovered planet, to find the kernel of humanity - with all of its qualities and failings. The protagonist of "Can I Speak to Nina" is something of a child frozen in the body of an adult - emotionally paralyzed by his clumsy loss of a ration card during WWII. Not entirely willing to forgive himself the mistake which made life much less pleasant in an unpleasant time (the rest of the family had to give up some of their rations), he never comes alive until accidentally calling a young girl who's literally more backward than he - eerily convinced that the year is not 1972, but 1943! The oddities of the universe, which cover up the unoriginality of plots or flatness of charachters in other sc-fi, cause Bulychev's charachters to unfold like a flower. His prose only seem spare but mask an inner humanity. when futuristic cosmonauts stumble on the derelict zoo-ship of "Half a Life", they argue on seemingly petty history - like whether Natasha, the human abductee, made it into space before Sputnik, or had to follow Gagarin. When other interplanetary explorers are welcomed home after a seemingly meaningless mission, you'll want to shout along "I was the first to find you!" Don't lose this one.