table.main {}
tr.row {}
td.cell {}
div.block {}
div.paragraph {}
.font0 { font:1.00pt "Arial", sans-serif; }
.font1 { font:8.00pt "Arial", sans-serif; }
.font2 { font:10.00pt "Arial", sans-serif; }
.font3 { font:14.00pt "Arial", sans-serif; }
.font4 { font:16.00pt "Arial", sans-serif; }
.font5 { font:19.00pt "Arial", sans-serif; }
.font6 { font:24.00pt "Arial", sans-serif; }
.font7 { font:24.10pt "Arial", sans-serif; }
.font8 { font:26.15pt "Arial", sans-serif; }
.font9 { font:34.00pt "Arial", sans-serif; }
.font10 { font:35.00pt "Arial", sans-serif; }
.font11 { font:36.00pt "Arial", sans-serif; }
.font12 { font:8.00pt "Times New Roman", serif; }
.font13 { font:9.00pt "Times New Roman", serif; }
.font14 { font:10.00pt "Times New Roman", serif; }
.font15 { font:11.00pt "Times New Roman", serif; }
.font16 { font:17.00pt "Times New Roman", serif; }
.font17 { font:20.00pt "Times New Roman", serif; }
.font18 { font:26.80pt "Times New Roman", serif; }




THEODORE STURGEOhBS
NTRODUCES NEW SCIENCE FICTION FROM .
FAR RAINBOW/ THE SECOND
52*5'
^ kT
AVi W
FROM MARS
Arkady and Boris Strugatsky
SAIJ SCIENCE FICTION
BEST OF SfVIET SF
___l_:________
FAR RAINBOW/ THE
FROM MARS
"Often presented TTTtim lititwn Soviet sf writers, the Strugatsky brothers have never been betterifMhe first of these paired novellas, they have written the best and deepest account in years of humans reacting to swift and overwhelming disaster. In contrast, the other story is quaintly reminiscent of nineteenth-century Russian comedy as it tells the tale of Martian purchasing agents suborning Earth, having failed with the methods described in H.G. Wells' War of the Worlds. Most readers will much prefer one or the other of these stories; but, whichever it is, they will like it very much."                        ALA Booklist



* E*; 1



























Critical Acclaim for the Strugatsky Brothers
THE UGLY SWANS
"Witty, economical, and provocative."
Kirkus Reviews
DEFINITELY MAYBE
"This is definitely, not maybe, a beautiful book." Ursula K. Le Guin
"Provocative, delicately paced and set against a rich physical and psychological background, this is one of the best novels of the year."
Chicago Sun Times
PRISONERS OF POWER
"Russia's best-known SF duo have come up with another winner___
Absorbing and revealing about what science fiction writers inside the USSR can say."                                                           Publishers Weekly
COLLIER BOOKS 866 Third Avenue, New York, NY. 10022
Copyright©1980 Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc.
ISBN D-D5-D55blD-fi
■>
Far Rainbow
The Second Invasion from Mars
/•

macmillan's
Best of Soviet Science Fiction Series
Arkady and Boris Strugatsky:
Roadside Picnic/Tale of the Troika
Prisoners of Power
Definitely Maybe
Noon; 22nd Century
Far Rainbow/The Second Invasion from Mars
KirillBulychev: Half a Life
Mikhail Emtsev and Eremei Parnov: World Soul
Dmitri Bilenkin:
The Uncertainty Principle
Vladimir Savchenko: Self-Discovery
Vadim Shefner:
The Unman/Kovrigin's Chronicles
Alexander Beliaev:
Professor DowelVs Head
Far Rainbow
Translated from the Russian by Antonina W. Bouis^
::
The Second Invasion from Mars
Translated from the Russian by Gary Kern Introduction by Theodore Sturgeon
Arkady Strugatsky and Itoris Strugatsky
COLLIER BOOKS
A Division of Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc.
New York
COLLIER MACMILLAN PUBLISHERS London
Copyright © 1979 by Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the Publisher.
Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc.
866 Third Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10022
Collier Macmillan Canada, Ltd.
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Strugatskii, Arkadii Natanovich.
Far rainbow/The second invasion from Mars.
Translation of Dalekaia radug and of Vtoroe nashestvie marsian.
1. Science fiction, EnglishTranslations from Russian. 2. Science fiction, RussianTranslations into English. I. Strugatskii, Boris Natanovich, joint author. II. Strugatskii, Arkadii Natanovich. Vtoroe nashestvie marsian. 1980. III. Title. IV. Title: The second invasion from Mars. PZ4.S919Far 1980 [PG3476.S78835] 891.73'44 80-298 ISBN 0-02-025610-8
First Collier Books Edition 1980
Far Rainbow/The Second Invasion from Mars is also published in a hardcover edition by Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc.
Printed in the United States of America
Introduction
It is a Strugatsky hallmark not merely to present wonders, but to have the characters take them for granted, in the expectation that readers will follow suit. In Far Rainbow there is considerable explanation, for example, of "zero physics" and the theory of instantaneous matter transmission over stellar distances and associated phenomena. It is not an explanation one is expected to understand fully, any more than Hannibal could be expected to understand a tunnel diode, for the advance in technology is of that magnitude. The special Strugatsky trick is to convince you absolutely that the people in the story understand it; for the authors have grasped the secret of storytelling: good fiction is never primarily about ideas, but only about people and their interaction with ideas and with one another. Pivotal as the technology and its effects on the planet Rainbow may be, it will be the people in these pages who will involve you. You will care about them very much indeed as it comes to you that this is a tragedy in the purest form of ancient Greek drama: a story of the inevitable. You will be made to care by witnessing not only their peril, but their love and laughter, and the meticulous etching of their varied personalities.
vii
viii • Introduction
Those who have enjoyed the sequential novel Noon: 22nd Century will have the pleasure of meeting an old friend here, the astronaut Gorbovsky. If you have wondered what ever became of him, you can now know. This may not please you, but you will never forget it. In a moment of ascending tension, he walks through a terribly threatened crowd, trying to guess their reaction to the doomsday news he is about to give them: "I believe in you, he thought stubbornly. I believe in you no matter what. I believe in you, you frightened, wary, disillusioned fanatics. People."
In this moment, he speaks for the Strugatskys. It has been said that every writer has one thing to say, and he says it over and over again in everything he writes. If this is true, then the foregoing is what the Strugatskys say in every one of their amazingly different and distinctive works.
The Second Invasion from Mars is a fable.
A fable is a story exemplifying a moral, a statement that, on reflection, one finds to be larger than the narrative itself.
All living literature is fable. Living literature is, like all living things, literature that grows as the reader grows. An eight-year-old will be enchanted by the image of Gulliver tied down on the sands by threadlike ropes manned by all those tiny little people and by his subsequent adventures with them. At twenty or so, the reader might learn that the story is an incisive lampoon of English and Irish politics of the day, complete with devastating caricatures of contemporary dignitaries. Ultimately, he might find a deeper level of human meaning, in which caring and compassion are shown to be the true sources of Swift's derision.
So you may read this fable for itself, and enjoy this conglomeration of village idiots: the bumbling retiree whose diary carries the narration, with his pompousness, his capacity for instant rationalization of cowardice, his slavish yet stubborn pursuit of his pension, his stamps, his cognac, and his self-respect; his wayward daughter and his acidulous
Introduction • ix
housekeeper; the drunken honey-dumper who keeps driving his noisesome cess-truck into the architecture; the bird-brained constable who arrests him daily and jails him to sleep it off; and the damndest Martians you have ever encountered.
Stitched through this comic opera is wit of a high order. "Our policemen," writes the narrator in his diary, "should be intellectuals, models for the youth, heroes to be emulated, people you can safely entrust with weapons and authority, but also with educational work. But Charon considers such a police force 'a company of eggheads/ He says no state would want my kind of police force because it would start arresting and reeducating the very people the state finds most useful, beginning with the Prime Minister and the Chief of Police."
And this: "In such a small town as ours, everyone knows the teacher. The parents of your pupils imagine for some reason that you are a wonder-worker and are able by your personal example to keep the children from following in their parents' footsteps."
You noticed that name Charon. The dundering diarist's name is ApolloPhoebus Apollo. There is a Polyphemus (who has only one leg), an Achilles, a Zephyrus. Apollo's amorous daughter (wife of Charon) is Artemis. The town madam is Persephone. Everyone has names like that, and there's no end to the delving that can be done to reach the many levels of puckishness involved.
This town could be any town, the people (under the clown suits) any people anywhere.
And when you're done laughing, the moral of this fable is utterly terrifying.
Theodore Sturgeon Los Angeles, 1979