London: Victor Gollancz, 1980. First British (and first hardcover) edition. Octavo; 243pp; blue textured paper boards; dust jacket. A hint of sunning at heel of spine, else very fine in a very fine, unclipped ("£6.50 net") jacket. Signed by both Arkady and Boris Strugatsky to the front free endpaper. Translated by Alan Meyers. Introduction by Darko Suvin.
Immaculate first UK edition of this important work of Soviet science fiction, signed by both of the Strugatsky brothers. A symbolically complex novel whose parallel narratives deal with intertwined themes of (bureaucratic) order and (natural) chaos on an alien world dominated by a seemingly endless forest. In an essay included as afterword to the 2018 translation published by University of Chicago Press, Boris Strugatsky acknowledged this as the brothers' "most complete and important work." Nonetheless, the work had a troubled early history, with its suggestive ambiguities earning the ire of censors in Russia, where for decades it could only be found in heavily expurgated forms. Samizdat copies, meanwhile, made their way to the West, allowing for translations of the complete text such as this one by Alan Meyers.
