Earth and Elsewhere

by Kir Bulychev

Contents:

The Way to Amalteia - novella by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky
A Part of the World - novella by Sever Gansovsky
Another's Memory - novella by Kirill Bulychev
A Tale of Kings - novella by Olga Larionova
Tower of Birds - novella by Oleg Korabelnikov

Genres: Science Fiction

315 pages, Hardcover

First published December 28, 1985

About the author

Kir Bulychev was a pen name of Igor Vsevolodovich Mozheiko, a Soviet Russian science fiction writer, critic, translator and historian of Lithuanian ancestry. His magnum opus is a children's science fiction series Alisa Selezneva, although most of his books are adult-oriented. His books were adapted for film, TV, and animation over 20 times – more than any other Russian science fiction author – and Bulychev himself wrote scripts for early adaptations.
He began to write SF in 1965. He has translated numerous American SF stories into Russian.
Winner of the ESFS Awards in 1984 as the "Best Short Story Writer".
Winner of the Aelita award in 1997.

Other names:
Russian - Кир Булычев
Russian real name (non-fiction books) - Игорь Можейко
Bulgarian - Кир Буличов
Polish - Kir Bułyczow
Hungarian - Kir Bulicsov
Estonian - Kir Bulõtšov
Spanish - Kir Bulichov
Slovak - Kirill Bulyčov
Finnish - Kirill Bulytšev
Lithuanian - Kirilas Bulyčiovas
German - Kirill Bulytschow
Czech - Kir Bulyčov
Chinese - 季尔·布雷乔夫

Reviews

[Paul McAlduff · Rating 3 out of 5]

All though this collection was not as good as some of the other anthologies of Soviet science fiction I've read, it was good.

"The Way to Amaltheia" was by far the best story in the collection. Of course being by the Strugatsky brothers I suspected it would be. This is the story of a transport ship that crashes into the rings of Jupiter on its way to Amaltheia with a shipment of food for a colony facing starvation.

"A Part of the World" was probably the worst of the bunch. I found it to be rather disjointed. Since all of the stories were translated by the same person I assume that this was a problem with the original story. It is the story of a man who goes off in search of himself and discovers that he is unhappy with modern technology.

"Another's Memory" was the second best story in the collection. It is a story of a scientist who tries to create a clone of himself that contains all of his memories.

"A Tale of Kings" is a story of a man and woman who are abducted by a race of aliens that has forgotten how to love.

"Tower of Birds" was a decent story. It's about a man who gets lost on a large prairie and discovers that the forest spirits of Russian folklore are real. My biggest complaint is that it is fantasy and this is suppose to be a collection of Soviet science fiction.