Books - Inhabited Island

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	Books - Inhabited Island

Inhabited Island (a.k.a Prisoner of Power in British translations) is a science fiction novel written by Russian science fiction authors Boris and Arkady Strugatsky. Originally it was published in 1971, after modifications by Soviet censors to remove possible allusions to the Soviet Union. In 1992 the book was published again in the original uncensored version although many original character names were lost.

Book Setting

In the time of the 22nd century cycle, humanity has already achieved rapid interstellar travel; a number of non-human species exist in this universe, two of them having also built space ships and established diplomatic ties with Earth, but only humans are depicted as aggressively exploring and seeking new horizons. Human social organization is presumably Communist (the novels having been written and published in the USSR), however it can be better explained as a post-industrial technocracy based on superabundance due to automatic production. It is a society that has effectively solved all of its material problems, feels no existential threats (except possibly from unknown alien civilizations), and spends much of its efforts on scientific research and space exploration. One of their more controversial projects are the Progressors, agents embedded to the less developed humanoid civilizations in order to "speed up" their development (by means ranging from helping out or protecting scholars and scientists to overthrowing the local governments, depending on the situations and people involved). Kammerer will eventually encounter some of these Progressors on planet Saraksh, albeit too late.

Plot Summary

The story evolves around the adventures of Maxim Kammerer. He is then a young man who, failing achieving an interesting career on Earth, gets an unprestigious job in space exploration. He finds an uncharted planet (Saraksh) inhabited by a humanoid species similar to humanity of the mid 20th century, living with the dire consequences of a recent nuclear war. His ship shot down by the abandoned, yet functional, air defense system, he settles in the society of the Land of the Fathers nation (becoming a "robinson" of an "inhabited island"; hence the title).

The society of the Land of the Fathers is controlled by a totalitarian, militaristic, avowedly fascist, regime headed by the Fathers, an oligarchy of high officials and business leaders. The nation is in the state of constant war against the rival Island Empire, whose incessant seaborne attacks seek to pave way for conquest and wholesale extermination of the people of the continent. Somewhat less justifiably, the propaganda regularly portrays the states to the north, in truth divided and weak, as constituting a military threat.

The most significant feature of the Land of the Fathers is its use of mind control through special frequencies of electromagnetic waves broadcast throughout the territory of the country. A vast network of rebroadcast towers are claimed to be a ballistic missile defense network of unspecified nature, while in actuality serving to broadcast mind-altering transmissions. The primary, constant, broadcasts suppress ability to evaluate information critically, hence making the omnipresent regime propaganda much more effective. Of course, these broadcasts by themselves carry no information, hence making effective any kind of propaganda; thus, for example, Kammerer encounters a state research institute where employees are intentionally shielded from official propaganda (newspapers and radio) and are exposed only to internal publications, assuring their loyalty to their superiors rather than the state in general.

An additional, intense broadcast, turned on twice a day, serves to relieve mental stress caused by the difference between the propaganda and the observed reality by provoking a strong outburst of blinding enthusiasm. Indeed, Strugatsky gives a masterful description of this process at work, delineating the train of thought of a character as it rapidly switches from a state of peeved boredom and disdain for his superiors to one of rapture about people around him and life in general. The people are divided into the majority, susceptible to the broadcasts and a minority of "mutants"(выродки)who are not affected by the regular broadcasts and who experience strong pain due to the intense periodic enthusiasm-inducing ones. The mutant minority (easily distinguished by their induced epileptic seizures) is actively persecuted by the regime, dubbed traitors and a biological threat to the species, and most of them are imprisoned in concentration camps. Nevertheless, the high officials of the government (the Fathers) are themselves mutants, paying for the power of mind control over the people with great personal suffering during intense broadcasts. The arrival of Kammerer, a human, brings in a third alternative to this picture: he is not susceptible to any effect of these waves.

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