The House of Wanderers

It was a brotherhood of friends in spirit – a fantastic spirit of freedom that suddenly swept over the country in the legendary 60s. They gathered at the apartment of Ariadna Gromova near the zoo – Arkady Strugatsky, the soul... of the company, Sever Gansovsky, Roman Podolny, Anatoly Dneprov, the young Dmitry Bilenkin, and even Stanislaw Lem during his rare visits from Poland – and under the roar of beasts outside the window, to the wild strings of Vysotsky ('Through space-time we're heading on a spaceship...'), a frequent guest in the house, over tea or something stronger, they talked about science fiction, thought about science fiction, believed in it. The clever Alexander Mirer, a permanent participant in the gatherings, whose opinion was valued and respected here, expressed himself aphoristically and accurately: 'Science fiction is the most honest and observant witness at the trial of history.' Because for the people of this circle, science fiction and reality, especially Russian reality, were inseparable.
In science fiction, Alexander Mirer is primarily a researcher. The subject of his research work is the manipulation of human consciousness. The capture and enslavement of the mind ('The House of Wanderers'), external control of the brain leading to the collapse of civilization ('I Have Nine Lives'), the conflict between the natural and the imposed ('Madagascar Island')... These themes are always relevant, and certainly never secondary – times may change, but people in them are mostly the same as they were yesterday and the day before.