Prisoners of power (edition 1983)

A man from an utopian Earth shipwrecked in a dystopian planet where he finds himself at the middle of local politics and the resistance... The Strugatsky brothers' book was banned in the Soviet Union and they had a good reason for that... ( )

Here is a man from a future utopian Earth, where people live and stay healthy for as long as they have an interest in life. The anti-utopian (distopian) option of the future is on a planet where Max lands to prepare a report for the KGB (K-Council of Gallactic B-Security-bezopasnost.) People there drink, smoke, die early and are controlled by mind-bending rays broadcast from cell-phone type pylons. Nations wage nuclear wars against each other polluting the planet that is already suffering from unbalanced environment.

Stranded on the planet, Max misses his favourite pastime on Earth: running. It's not any running. His was a run through the woods a-chasing the deer. The future human would catch up with the deer, grab him by the antlers, stop, hold down and then release.

Read the full review on Tetradki:
http://russianbooks.blogspot.com/2009/04/future-runs.html ( )

ZB4

Theodore Sturgeon favorite