Stanislaw Lem's Return from the Stars recounts the experiences of Hal Bregg, an astronaut who returns from an exploratory mission that lasted ten years—although because of time dilation, 127 years have passed on Earth. Bregg finds a society that he hardly recognizes, in which danger has been eradicated. Children are ‘betrizated’ to remove all aggression and violence—a process that also removes...

A multitude of different personalities dwell within each of us, yet a rational mind suppresses any attempt they might make to assert their independence. Rosa, the protagonist of Tatyana Shcherbina’s novel, spent many years in a lethargic sleep; it is hardly surprising, then, that she slips back and forth between classical antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the final years of the USSR. Yet the...