The Crew of the Mekong. Ur, Son of Shama

The names of the creative duo Evgeny Voiskunsky and Isaiah Lukodyanov, while not as prominent as, for instance, the names of Ivan Efremov, the Strugatsky brothers, or Kir Bulychev, nonetheless represent one of the brightest pages in the history of domestic science fiction. The fact that their first joint work—the novel "The Crew of the Mekong," released in the early sixties—was highlighted from a stream of manuscripts by Arkady Strugatsky, who was at the time part of the Detgiz editorial staff, speaks volumes for itself. 

The book is written in a lively, human language that was rare for science fiction of that era, full of humor and gentle irony, masterfully adorned with details of the unique way of life in a southern Caspian city. The people in it are not mannequins, not schematics, not walking loudspeakers of some project or idea, but simply people, just like us, not geniuses, but not fools either. "Ur, Son of Shama," written more than ten years later, formally relates to "The Crew of the Mekong." 

In the novel, the heroes of "The Mekong" meet the son of a Babylonian who was abducted from Earth by extraterrestrial beings thousands of years ago. Science fiction? Yes, of course. But it is also a novel about love. A love that transcends space and time. A love for which the dilemma between the common universal mind, with which the hero is connected, and the impossibility of returning from the "underdeveloped" planet Earth to the highly developed planet Eir is resolved in favor of the former—the planet where Ur, son of Shama, found love.