| The Ugly Swans | |
|---|---|
 Cover from MacMillan edition |
|
| Author | Arkady and Boris Strugatsky |
| Original title | Гадкие лебеди |
| Translator | Alice Stone Nakhimovsky and Alexander Nakhimovsky |
| Country | Soviet Union |
| Language | Russian |
| Genre(s) | Science fiction novel |
| Publisher | Macmillan in U.S., unpublished in USSR until 1987 |
| Publication date | in samizdat since 1968 |
| Published in English |
1979 1st in U.S. |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover) |
| ISBN | ISBN 0-02-615190-1 (US edition) |
| OCLC Number | 4593633 |
| Dewey Decimal | 891.7/3/44 |
| LC Classification | PZ4.S919 Ug 1979 PG3476.S78835 |
The Ugly Swans (Russian: Гадкие лебеди) is a science fiction novel by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky. It was written in 1966-1967 to be published in Soviet literary magazine "Molodaya Gvardiya", but the publication was rejected due to prominent political and free-thought overtones in the novel. It circulated in samizdat, and was published abroad. In USSR, it was published only during perestroika, in 1987, in Latvian Daugava magazine, as "The Time of Rains" (Время дождей). Later it was included as a story within a story in Strugatsky's Crooked Destiny, where the protagonist, Felix Sorokin, secretly works on the novel.
In 2006, a loose film adaptation of the novel was made by Konstantin Lopushansky.
Novel plot summary
The novel shares some ideas with later works like The Second Invasion from Mars and Roadside Picnic (a non-standard alien invasion), and The Time Wanderers (the birth of Übermensch). The story is set in an unnamed town in an unnamed country, where the rain never stops, people suffer from strange disfiguring "yellow leprosy", and local children become superhuman geniuses despising the dirty and corrupt human world and having no remorse for adults.
English releases
- Arkadii Natanovich Strugatskii, The Ugly Swans translated by Alice Stone Nakhimovsky and Alexander Nakhimovsky, New York: MacMillan, ISBN 0026151901
- Arkady Strugatsky, The Ugly Swans, New York: Collier Books, 1980, 234pp, ISBN 0020072406
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