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The Doomed City Audiobook
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Arkady and Boris Strugatsky are widely considered the greatest of Russian science fiction masters, and their most famous work, Roadside Picnic, has enjoyed great popularity worldwide. Yet the novel they worked hardest on, the one that was their own favorite and that readers worldwide have acclaimed as their magnum opus, has never before been published in English. The Doomed City was so politically risky that the Strugatsky brothers kept its existence a complete secret even from their closest friends for sixteen years after its completion in 1972. It was only published in Russia during perestroika in the late 1980s, the last of their works to see publication. Having been translated into a host of European languages, it now appears in English for the first time in a major new effort by acclaimed translator Andrew Bromfield.
The Doomed City is set in an experimental city whose sun gets switched on in the morning and switched off at night, a city bordered by an abyss on one side and an impossibly high wall on the other. Its inhabitants are people who were plucked from twentieth-century history at various times and places and left to govern themselves under conditions established by Mentors whose purpose seems inscrutable.
Andrei Voronin, a young astronomer taken from Leningrad in the 1950s, is a die-hard believer in the Experiment, even though his first job in the city is as a garbage collector. As increasingly nightmarish scenarios begin to affect the city, Voronin rises through the political hierarchy, with devastating effect.
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“Put The Doomed City in the bookcase next to 1984, Fahrenheit 451, Ultima Thule, and Ballard’s Kingdom Come. If you aren’t a sci-fi fan, it fits equally well alongside Animal Farm, Red Harvest, and Catch-22.”
— Huffington Post (Canada)
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“A book that carries an Orwellian punch, and a crazed energy all its own.”
— Nature -
“Mysterious…Thought-provoking.”
— Kirkus Reviews -
“The historical references are nuanced and poignant. And the conclusions, disturbing and beautiful in equal parts. It’s the kind of book that will shake you to your core.”
— Men’s Journal online -
“The Strugatsky’s great lost masterwork, an allegorical nightmare metropolis fit for the special atlas that gives home to Kafka’s Castle, Charles Finney’s The Unholy City, Rex Warner’s Aerodrome, and a very select handful of others.”
— Jonathan Lethem, New York Times bestselling author
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About the Authors
Arkady and Boris Strugatsky were famous and popular Russian writers of science fiction, authors of more twenty-five novels and novellas, including Roadside Picnic, Hard to Be a God, The Doomed City, The Inhabited Island, The Snail on the Slope, The Dead Mountaineer’s Inn, and Definitely Maybe. Their books have been widely translated and made into a number of films.
Boris Strugatsky (1933–2012) worked as an astronomer and computer engineer until 1966, when he became a full-time writer. Along with his brother, Arkady, he is one of the most famous and popular Russian writers of science fiction. Together they wrote twenty-five novels and novellas, and their books have been widely translated and made into a number of films.
About Chris Andrew Ciulla
Chris Andrew Ciulla, an Earphones Award–winning narrator with over 350 credits, is an on-screen actor, voice actor, host, boxing analyst, and radio personality. He has performed characters for the popular video game series Fallout and Mafia, and can be heard frequently voicing commercial campaigns. A versatile performer with over twenty-five years of experience, he produces original audio content under his own production banner, Leonardo Audio.