Definitely Maybe (Neversink)

In its first-ever unexpurgated edition, a sci-fi landmark that’s a comic & suspenseful tour-de-force, & puts distraction in a whole new light: It’s not you, it’s the universe!

Boris & Arkady Strugatsky were the greatest science fiction writers of the Soviet era: their books were intellectually provocative & riotously funny, full of boldly imagined scenarios & veiled—but clear—social criticism. Which may be why Definitely Maybe has never before been available in an uncensored edition, let alone in English.

It tells the story of astrophysicist Dmitri Malianov, who has sent his wife and son off to her mother’s house in Odessa so that he can work, free from distractions, on the project he’s sure will win him the Nobel Prize.

But he’d have an easier time making progress if he wasn’t being interrupted all the time: First, it’s the unexpected delivery of a crate of vodka & caviar. Then a beautiful young woman in an unnervingly short skirt shows up at his door. Then several of his friends—also scientists—drop by, saying they all felt they were on the verge of a major discovery when they got . . . distracted . . .

Is there an ominous force that doesn’t want knowledge to progress? Or could it be something more . . . natural?

In this nail-bitingly suspenseful book, the Strugatsky brothers bravely & brilliantly question authority: an authority that starts with crates of vodka, but has lightning bolts in store for humans who refuse to be cowed. 

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Arkady Strugatsky (1925 - 1991) & Boris Strugatsky (1933 - 2012) are Russia's most acclaimed & popular science-fiction writers. Their unique style - at once hilarious & pitch black - encompassed a remarkable variety of different genres: from space opera to alien invasion, from locked-room mystery to dystopian apocalypse. While their initial output was uncritical of Soviet life, over time their work became much more subversive - science fiction being the perfect vehicle...