Prisoners of Power (Best of Soviet Science Fiction) [Hardcover]

Arkady Strugatsky (Author), Boris Strugatsky (Author), Helen Saltz Jacobson (Translator)

Product Details

• Hardcover
• Publisher: Macmillan Publishing Co; First American Edition edition (August 1977)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 002615160X
• ISBN-13: 978-0026151603
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,644,273 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars truly excellent work!, February 18, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Prisoners of Power (Best of Soviet Science Fiction) (Hardcover)

I recommend this book to everyone. I only want to say that the other reviews here give away some things from the book that you really ought to discover on your own, at the time that the authors planned for you to do. If you can, just take my word for it and read this book, read only the next review by a reader from Nashville, the others disclose too much. Of the great many sides of this excellent book is its enigma, it is a great detective story in a way where you're on the mission, along with the central character, to understand what's going on there. So it has action in it, it has philosophy, it deals with morals, freedom, responsibility. And it's full of imagination and unique perspective. After you've read the book, you can come back here and read the reviews, they're very good.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Timeless classic, December 2, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Prisoners of Power (Best of Soviet Science Fiction) (Hardcover)

An excellent book for all times, cultures, and societies, "Prisoners of Power" (the original is called "The Inhabited Island") is about every person's right to be free and about the responsibilities that come with freedom. A hero from Utopian society finds himself in the world where he is nearly a Superman, but in this world he doesn't know the difference between good and evil, and a mistake in judgement can cost him more than his own life. This is one of my favorite books. Unfortunately, the English translation misses some finer points of the book. I can only hope that with the new version of the book, where the authors restored the changes made (I should say inflicted) by the Soviet censorship, English-speaking readers will get a translation that's closer to the spirit of the original.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars PRISONERS OF POWER, February 7, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Prisoners of Power (Best of Soviet Science Fiction) (Hardcover)

I was Strugatsky reader since I was 9. And as a child, I discovered an interesting thing: authors use a fantastic factor to describe a fenomenon present in the everyday environment. Being marooned on the "Inhabited Island"(original title), like the chief character of this marvelous book, I can state under oath that an "irradiation" they invented in the contemporary society is rather irrelevant: people turn into robots all by themselves. Read this book and look around,- you won't regret it.