Priceless Gifts: How to Give the Best to Those You Love Book

5 stars for Far Rainbow; still uncertain where I'd place The Second Invasion from Mars.

Far Rainbow is my favorite kind of Strugatsky: bizarre physics, incredible characters, a rich and surprising plot, and (akin to PKD) an inability to measure or understand the powerful events sweeping the characters along.. (Personal note: my favorite character, Leonid, gave me words I will strive to live by: (paraphrased) "In over a hundred years of life, I've never met an unpleasant person".)

(PKD versus Strugatsky note, since these are the only two author teams (well, single author and pair of authors) who can capture that amazing quality of real life, where you never really know anything: at any moment you are working with fairly basic models built from past events; if something really wild turns up, you are just probing in the dark, nothing works, what can you do? Anyway, with PKD, the characters involved in the catastrophe are often either weak-willed and sort of buffeted around, try to wing it; or they are egomaniacs trying to control everything, with extreme recklessness. With strugatsky, though, one also encounters competent, humble characters who, while unable to tame these beasts, are able to restore some local amount of sanity, and act as guideposts to everyone else (and the reader). In Far Rainbow, there were Leonid and Camill. If I want to get really meta, it almost seems that PKD characters are typically very selfish, which is not the case with Strugatsky..? I'm simplifying vastly but the basic feel I get from PKD is "we are screwed in the face of this", whereas from Strugatsky it is "this is amazing, we can try to work with it..".)

The Second Invasion from Mars is the kind of Strugatsky which I have trouble with, where satirizing soviet rule is the focus. Of course, it was still made interesting; it is not clear until the last paragraphs of the book whether Martians are involved, or if (as the narrator discusses) it's just a code name for a group performing a coup, and all other strange occurrences are due to rumors and inebriation (either way, it seems that the 1917 communist takeover was The First Invasion from Mars). The choice of perspective (a very old retired man) brings many things to attention which are rather crucial to the message (an effective takeover immediately placates the masses with basic things like bread & beer). Neat story, although not really my sort of thing..