A perfect story: nothing extra, nothing missing. Conveys the true feeling of being a scientist and making discoveries, and elegantly states the moral dilemma of committment to truth versus committment to one's self, appetites, and family.

Just read this book and liked it a lot. It seemed to explore the theme of why most people never really live up to their potential, or fulfill the dreams of their youth, but instead get sidetracked or sucked down in the concerns of everyday life. Perhaps it's the homeostatic universe at work. "Since then crooked, roundabout, godforsaken paths stretch out before me..." Great stuff!

I like Strugatsky very much. I'm happy I can read them in Russian, but you can find many translationsinto English just as well. Definitely Maybe, or, originally, One Billion Years before the End of the World, is, no doubt, one of their best books, along with Hard to be a God, Roadside Picnic or Snail on the Slope. It's a pity people in the West talk so much about Solzhenitsin and the like and know practically nothing about Strugatsky whose contribution to the world literature is in no way less. One more thought for those who think they hate science fiction. Strugatsky themselves (or Strugatskii, or Strugatski -- you can find any of those spellings on the Internet) once wrote that in fact there's no such genre as science fiction. There's good literature and bad literature. Strugatsky is definitely (without any maybe) a good literature.

I have read all the books written by brothers A&B Strugatskii and would name them among my favourite authors. This particular book is actually a second and probably the most popular part of a trilogy where the main charachter is Maxim Kammerrer. In spite of that it can be easily read separately. The story will keep even the ones who do not like science fiction preoccupied for a few hours. The authors explore our fear of the unknown. What is the real purpose of the alien world and its beings? Are they offering a friendly hand or are they here to destroy us? Or, may be, they are merely passing by... To make matters more complicated, the potential alien does not know that he might be a walking bomb as Earth is the only home he had ever known...

Why would a SuperMan (or X-man) want to stick around on the little Earth, getting the poor humans out of various boring problems?

May be, because he (or she) does not realize his (or her) powers. Or, because, he feels gratefull or has some other emotional attachments.

But this things can not keep him for too long...

Arkady and Boris Strugatsky's "Far Rainbow" represents that strangest of amalgams -- an eerily beautiful story of a planetary disaster. From a population of millions, only a handful could be saved. Paradoxically, the event brings out the best of the inhabitants, who set about selecting those among their number who represent the best of its people, work, and aspirations. Among the greatest works of all postwar Soviet fiction irrespective of category, the sci-fi books of the Strugatsky brothers deserve to be reprinted and disseminated to a new generation.

Geneticly different, they can not live without reading. As you might expect, some hate, some despise them for that. Those that "have a life" pitty them...

The book's style resembles the "traveling writer" style of some of the Hemmingway (sp?) books.

This book is part of another one by this authors: "Hromaja Sud'ba", but I'm not sure if it's already translated.

brilliant.best thing ever written.Ihave no words to describe it.humour...the humour in this book is sharp,wery sharp.and if you know the stupid life in the soviet union you will get the humour.

This is not an easy reading. There are no space battleships either... A great book about humans and their place and relationship with Nature.

I read it in Russian, and can not speak about this translation...

Amazon is incorrectly displaying only a single author -- the book was written by both brothers Arkady and Boris Strugatskij.