The Final Circle of Paradise

The novel “Predatory Things of the Century” combines an exciting detective plot with a description of consumer society. It’s a controversial picture: it seems that everyone is fed and satisfied, but from such a world you want to escape. Is a person incapable of living and remaining human without devoting their life to work? Is escapism really so bad if you have a choice about how to live and what to do? The work is very ambiguous—probably because we live in exactly the same world the Strugatskys described.