Second paragraph of third chapter:
| Румата остановился перед таверной и хотел было зайти, но обнаружил, что у него пропал кошелек. Он стоял перед входом в полной растерянности (он никак не мог привыкнуть к таким вещам, хотя это случилось с ним не впервые) и долго шарил по всем карманам. Всего было три мешочка, по десятку золотых в каждом. Один получил прокуратор, отец Кин, другой получил Вага. Третий исчез. В карманах было пусто, с левой штанины были аккуратно срезаны все золотые бляшки, а с пояса исчез кинжал. | Rumata stopped in front of a tavern and was about to go in, but then realized that his coin purse was missing. He stood in front of the door in complete confusion (he just couldn’t get used to such occurrences, although this wasn’t the first time) and spent a long time digging through his pockets. There had been three pouches, with ten gold pieces in each. He gave one to the procurator, Father Kin, and another to Waga. The third one had disappeared. His pockets were empty, all gold buckles had been carefully cut off his left pant leg, and the dagger had disappeared from his belt. |
This is billed as a new translation of one of the classic Soviet science fiction novels. Our hero, Don Rumata, has been dropped as an observer into a planet with a feudal society, as one of a team from a future (Communist) Earth guiding the society in the Right Direction. There are actually quite a lot of Western sf books with this sort of theme, but the ultimate concerns here are different to what I am used to; the lurch towards fascism on the planet clearly spelt out as a cause for possible intervention by the Earth folks.
It’s not brilliant on women characters, but it does have both action and thoughtfulness. My edition also has an afterword by Boris Strugatsky explaining the difficulties of sneaking the book through the process of political approval for publication. I’m glad they succeeded. You can get it here.
This was my top unread sf book, and my top book acquired last year that isn’t by Ben Aaronovitch (who I’m breaking out into his own sequence, as I have done with Wells and Pratchett). Next on those piles are The Word for World is Forest, by Ursula Le Guin, and The Light We Carry, by Michelle Obama.
