Monday Starts on Saturday

By: Arkady Strugatsky, Boris Strugatsky, Andrew Bromfield - translator, Adam Roberts - foreword

Narrated by: Ramiz Monsef

Sasha, a young computer programmer from Leningrad, is driving north to meet some friends for a nature vacation. He picks up a couple of hitchhikers who persuade him to take a job at the National Institute for the Technology of Witchcraft and Thaumaturgy.

The adventures Sasha has in the largely dysfunctional institute involve all sorts of magical beings - a wish-granting fish, a tree mermaid, a cat who can remember only the beginnings of stories, a dream-interpreting sofa, a motorcycle that can zoom into the imagined future, a lazy dog-sized mosquito - along with a variety of wizards (including Merlin), vampires, and officers.

First published in Russia in 1965, Monday Starts on Saturday has become the most popular Strugatsky novel in their homeland. Like the works of Gogol and Kafka, it tackles the nature of institutions - here focusing on one devoted to discovering and perfecting human happiness. By turns wildly imaginative, hilarious, and disturbing, Monday Starts on Saturday is a comic masterpiece by two of the world's greatest science-fiction writers.

©2017 Boris Strugatsky and Arkady Strugatsky (P)2017 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Really interesting

This is the first time I've read anything by a Russian author or anything that was translated - This was very good and I loved the connection between each story and the name.

surprisingly amazing

seriously I'd love to play a D&D campaign based off this story. it is amazing, like if the discworld wizards were put into more modern times and made Russian. it's amazing and every fantasy fan should read/listen to it.

weird

Weird and very good over all performance is like the doom city book by Strugatsky brothers.

The best translation!

This book was my favorite as a kid, and I am absolutely thrilled to find this wonderful translation!
I only wish the publishers included an index with references for all the Russian folk tales creatures and items, Soviet history references, meaningful names, and other inside jokes that are dropped in the text without explanation.
Perhaps in the next edition!

Fantastically weird

By far one of the best sci books I've read or listened to in some time. Weird, funny, fantastic, outstanding.

All these Are good Descriptions of this book.