Unlike the fantasy genre, where the action takes place in fairy-tale worlds, in fantastic works, the characters live in our reality, but they have by no means real adventures. They fall into the past or the future, meet magicians or genies in the present, turn from people into animals or fairy-tale characters. There are thousands of books in the children's fantasy genre. This review will help you navigate the sea of ​​​​fiction and choose interesting works for your children that are suitable for the age of the child.

1) Alexander Sharov
The Pea Man and the Simpleton(6-10 years old)

Labyrinth (click on the picture!)

MY-SHOP
OZONE

The hero of this tale, simple-hearted, but kind and brave, is forced by the thirteen-year-old to go in search of a place in life. In the end, he turns out to be a student of the storyteller meter Hanselius, nicknamed "The Pea Man" for his height. At the end of the training, the young storyteller will have to confront the evil sorcerer Turroputo, Scissors and the Same People, not let time go back and help the petrified son of his teacher and the fairy Princess find each other.

2) Sergey Belousov
Along the Rainbow, or Pechenyushkin's Adventures(7-10 years old)

Labyrinth (click on the picture!)

Who is Pechenyushkin? Amazing creature! Once he was an ordinary Brazilian monkey named Pichi-Nyush and saved his friend from a terrible death. As a reward, the gods endowed him with limitless magical properties, and most importantly, a heightened sense of justice. And for many centuries, Pechenyushkin, like a knight without fear or reproach, has been fighting evil in all its manifestations.
About the adventures of this mischievous character, the writer Sergei Belousov wrote a fairy-tale trilogy, which opens with the story "Along the Rainbow, or the Adventures of Pechenyushkin." The two most ordinary schoolgirl sisters live in the most ordinary Novosibirsk apartment and do not even realize that a magical rainbow leads directly to their balcony. Rainbow, traveling along which they will fall into the magical land of Fantasilla and help Pechenyushkin defeat the Villain in the silver hood.

3) Jan Larry
The Extraordinary Adventures of Vali and Karik(7-10 years old)

Brother and sister Karik and Valya, having drunk the miraculous liquid of Professor I.G. Enotov, turn into tiny little men, so tiny that even an ordinary dragonfly seems to them a huge monster. Perched on a dragonfly, children go on a fantastic journey through the real world of wildlife.
Many dangers and difficulties lie in wait for them on the way, but travelers will also learn a lot of interesting and unusual things about the life of plants and insects.

4) Lazar Lagin
Old Man Hottabych(7-10 years old)

Miracles happen unexpectedly: an ordinary boy Volka picks up a strange bottle from the bottom of the river, which reveals ... a fabulous gin. Jin, nicknamed Hottabych, begins to thank Volka in every possible way for his release, simultaneously finding himself in comic and funny situations and working miracles.

5) Andrey Salomatov
fantasy stories(7-10 years old)

Labyrinth (click on the picture!)

MY-SHOP
OZONE

The boy Philip unexpectedly finds himself in an amazing fairy-tale world. To return to reality, he needs to go through the whole fairyland and find the Black Stone. And it’s very difficult to do this, because on the way you meet not only a goblin with a kikimora, a mermaid with a forester, but also various trolls, bats and whole flocks of anchutes. Philip had to overcome chases, ambushes, traps and other difficulties in order to find the coveted stone and return home.

6) Kir Bulychev
Girl from the Earth, One Hundred Years Ahead(8-13 years old)

Alisa Selezneva lives in the most ordinary future. She goes to school, hates semolina, but loves adventure and dreams of becoming a space biologist like her dad. Alice also learns the Martian language, makes friends with a dragon named Serpent Gordynych and talks with dolphins. It doesn't cost her anything to travel in a time machine to the era of legends, take a ride on a magic carpet or discover an underground city on the mysterious planet Rogue. And Alice is not at all to blame for the fact that she now and then has to save someone or herself to escape either from a terrible tyrant, or from crazed robots, or from huge spiders ... This girl just works like that - she cannot live without adventures!
In 1965, Kir Bulychev published a collection of short stories "The Girl with whom Nothing Will Happen" - this was the beginning of a cycle of works about Alisa Selezneva, many of which became bestsellers of Soviet children's fiction. With the release of the cartoon "The Secret of the Third Planet" and the television series "Guest from the Future", Alice firmly took her place as one of the most beloved heroines in Soviet children's literature.

"One Hundred Years Ahead" is one of the best stories by Kir Bulychev, which gained fame thanks to the film adaptation - the popular five-episode television movie of 1985 "Guest from the Future".
Space pirates are after an important device - a myelophone, which reads the thoughts of a person or animal from a distance. Alice, who took the myelophone from her father, Professor Seleznev, travels to the past, where, with the help of ordinary Moscow schoolchildren, she saves a wonderful invention from the hands of space pirates.

7) Vladislav Krapivin
Blue flamingo children (8-12 years old), "In the depths of the great crystal" cycle (12+)

Labyrinth (click on the picture!)

MY-SHOP

The inhabitants of the island of Dwyd aspire to nothing and dream of nothing. All of them, frightened and deceived, serve order and are afraid of any changes. Life on the island is like a long rainy evening.
The invisible fabulous island of Dvid is ruled by the cruel Lizard. The legends of this island say that a Knight will come from the real world, who will kill the Lizard and free the island.
How the schoolboy Zhenya Ushakov got to the island and whether he managed to become a Knight is described in this book. But here, as elsewhere, all children are born brave - the iron lizard of unfreedom will one day be defeated.

Labyrinth (click on the picture!)

MY-SHOP

Next to us live children who can heal other people's pain, control time and space, children are the forerunners of an amazing future when a person can do everything, and the world will get rid of hatred, strife, pain and loneliness. One day, each of these children, in search of their place, goes on a journey through the worlds of the Great Crystal. These worlds border on ours, and for all their outward dissimilarity, they are similar to him in the main: good fights evil there, and people strive for happiness.
The story "Shot from the monitor" opens the famous fantastic cycle about the Great Crystal.

8) Andrei Zhvalevsky, Evgenia Pasternak
Time is always good(8-12 years old)

Labyrinth (click on the picture!)

Olya and Vitya, the main characters of the story "Time is always good," are ordinary children. Like all their peers, they go to school, make friends, laugh and get upset. The difference between them is that Olya lives in 2018, and Vitya lives in the already distant 1980. One day, the children fall ill and miraculously change places in their sleep. Or rather, at times. This is where the fun begins...
When is it better to live, in the future or the past? Have people changed in almost forty years? Or is it absolutely unimportant what era a person lives in, and everything depends on him?

9) Erin Hunter
Warrior cats(10-13 years old)

The main characters are cats from ThunderClan. The story begins with a pet kitten, Ginger, who ran away from the Twolegs (as people are called in the book) and ended up in ThunderClan. His life changed dramatically. Ryzhik (hereinafter referred to as Ogonyok) had to go through many dangerous adventures, after which he became a warrior and, according to tradition, he was named Fireheart. The first series of books ends after a battle between the forest tribes and the city cats brought in by an angry Talon. This series is mostly told from Firestar's point of view. In the second cycle, the daughters of Leafpool and Squirrel were born to the leader, from the point of view of which the narration will be conducted. Also, the main characters of the second cycle will be the warriors Blackberry and Hurricane. In the third cycle, Firestar's grandchildren, Sparrow, Lionblaze, and Hollyleaf, will appear, who will tell about the events at that time, but at the end of the third cycle, Hollyleaf will disappear into the tunnels. In the fourth cycle, Dovewing will join the two grandchildren of the leader, who will replace the lost warrior. In this cycle, the story will be told not only from the point of view of Sparrow and Lionblaze, but also Dovewing and her sister Spark. More on cycles and order of books here https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9A%D0%BE%D1%82%D1%8B-%D0%92%D0%BE%D0%B8%D1 %82%D0%B5%D0%BB%D0%B8#.D0.9E.D1.81.D0.BD.D0.BE.D0.B2.D0.BD.D1.8B.D0.B5_.D0. BA.D0.BD.D0.B8.D0.B3.D0.B8

10) Vladimir Obruchev
Plutonia, Sannikov Land (12+)

The mysterious missing land seen on the horizon in the Arctic Ocean is not a mirage. The lost Onkilon tribe lives in the Stone Age, does not know how to make fire and hunt rhinos and mammoths.
The heroes of the novel "Sannikov Land" end up on a mysterious island, which becomes their home for a long time. The heroes of the novel "Plutonia" are looking for an unknown mainland in the northern waters, but they find it ... underground, where they fall into the time of the dinosaurs.

11) James Crews
Tim Thaler, or Sold Laughter(10-14 years old)

Labyrinth (click on the picture!)

MY-SHOP
OZONE

The scene is Germany in the 1930s. Fourteen-year-old Tim Thaler, despite his young age, is fed up with the trials that fate sends him: first his beloved mother dies, followed by his father, and Tim is left alone with his stepmother and half-brother, who only do what spoils his life . But Tim is not so easy to break: he knows how to laugh loudly and contagiously, laughter is his main weapon against troubles, which not only seems priceless to him ... Once a mysterious stranger - a certain Baron Trech - offers him a deal: Tim gives the baron his laughter, and in return receives the gift of winning any, even the most incredible bet. He happily agrees. Having acquired a new talent for himself, Tim constantly wins at the races and grows rich before his eyes. Now he can travel and generally do whatever he wants. It would seem that he should be happy, but he desperately lacks one thing - his sold laughter. But how do you get it back? Friends could help here, but if Tim tells someone about his misfortune, he will not only not return his laughter, but also lose the gift to win a bet ...

12) Jules Verne
Mysterious island, 20,000 leagues under the sea(10-14 years old)

Jules Verne Mysterious Island Online store Labyrinth.
MY-SHOP
OZONE

Five brave northerners flee from the city of Richmond taken by the southerners in a hot air balloon. After a terrible storm, they find themselves on the shore of an uninhabited island. Life on the island becomes a real test of their ingenuity and courage. They manage not only to survive, but also to create a small civilization: they breed livestock, grow wheat from a single grain, produce labor and household items in their own small factories, and even conduct a real telegraph. But the island turns out to be not so uninhabited - someone mysterious more than once saves the heroes of the novel from inevitable death.

One of the most fascinating novels by J. Verne. Biologist Pierre Aronnax and harpooner Ned Land set off in search of a strange fish spotted by sailors in different parts of the world. The mysterious creature turns out to be a submarine designed by the mysterious Captain Nemo.

13) Cressida Crowell
How to Train Your Dragon(8-12 years old)

If you suddenly do not know, then in the old days every self-respecting Viking had his own dragon. Other peoples used dogs, horses and other livestock as pets. Vikings are dragons. But first, the young Viking had to catch his dragon, which in itself is not easy. And then - tame him. What is even more difficult. All together is called - the test of dragon education. Anyone who does not pass it is expelled from the tribe.
When Hiccup, the son of the leader of the Shaggy Hooligans and the most unmuscular young Viking on the island of Berk, went to catch his dragon, he did not hope that passing the test would be easy. And he had no idea that he and Toothless would become heroes!

14) Yuri Tomin
A wizard was walking around the city (8-12 years old), A, B, C, D, E and others ... (10-14 years old)

Labyrinth (click on the picture!)

MY-SHOP
OZONE

Many miracles and transformations happen to an ordinary schoolboy Tolik Ryzhkov. And all because Tolik got a box of magic matches...

Labyrinth (click on the picture!)

Physics teacher Alexei Palych and schoolboy Boris Kulikov have a new problem on a cosmic scale - Elena Dmitrievna, a cold and insensitive high school teacher. It is she who will take the students on a hike.
Alexey Palych and Borya follow them, because no one knows what to expect from False Dmitrievna - a mysterious alien who flew to Earth with a specific purpose ...

15) Evgeny Veltistov
Adventure Electronics(9-13 years old)

Labyrinth (click on the picture!)

MY-SHOP
OZONE

Who does not know Electronics and his best friend Seryozhka Syroezhkin! And probably, many are familiar with Ressy - the Rarest Electronic Dog. But it all started with the fact that Professor Gromov invented an electronic boy who, quite by chance, met his living double. And since then, Electronics and Syroezhkin have become inseparable friends. What amazing adventures happened to them! The friends took part in rescuing Nekton the whale and the white tiger, inspired Serezha's classmates to become "ordinary geniuses", and developed the Spaceship Earth project. And what was the cost of one operation to save Rassy from the hands of villains who wanted to use her unique qualities to their advantage!
These and other exciting adventures of Electronics, Earrings Syroezhkin and their friends are told in four fantastic stories that are included in the book.

16) Anatoly Moshkovsky
Five in a starship. seven days of miracles(8-12 years old)

Labyrinth (click on the picture!)

MY-SHOP
OZONE

The book of the famous children's writer A.I. Moshkovsky includes two fabulous, fantastic stories. "Five in a Starship" - about the children of the future (previously it was published under the title "The Lost Starship"). The story "Seven Days of Miracles" is about modern children. Both stories are about mysterious events and extraordinary adventures that happened on Earth and outside the solar system, about how to value friendship and kindness, not to get lost in critical situations, how important it is to be inquisitive, generous, courageous and noble in life.

17) Vitaly Melentiev
Black Light, Common Memba(10-14 years old)

Labyrinth (click on the picture!)

MY-SHOP
OZONE

Synopsis for "Black Light"
There were two most ordinary boys in the world. Even their names were unremarkable - Vasya Golubev and Yurka Boytsov. Once Vasya went in search of a mammoth tooth, and Yurka, together with his faithful dog Sharik, ran away from home - that's when their incredible adventures began. Vasya, for example, had a chance to visit the distant future, make friends with a living mammoth and find himself on March 33rd. And Yurka got on a real spaceship and met peers from another civilization. But none of the boys suspected that another adventure awaited ahead, in which both of them would have to participate ...

Synopsis for "Common Memba"
Three of the most ordinary schoolchildren in the most unusual way turned out to be participants in intergalactic adventures. Who would have thought that the most ordinary TV viewing would turn into an interesting journey for them. Using a simple device of their own invention, as they would say today - a "gadget", the main characters in a fantastic wave bubble overcame great distances, met charming aliens and ... aliens and, of course, saw with their own eyes a distant, incredible and mysterious planet - Memba.

18) Alexey Tolstoy
Aelita (12+)

Labyrinth (click on the picture!)

MY-SHOP
OZONE

Engineer Los completes the construction of the spaceship and makes an announcement inviting those who wish to accompany him on an expedition to Mars. At the last moment, the satellite is located - this is the Red Army soldier Alexei Gusev. The heroes land safely on a distant planet, and each of them chooses his own path to happiness -
The reader, captivated by the exciting plot, will plunge into the maelstrom of incredible adventurous, and sometimes magical adventures.

19) Neil Gaiman
coraline(10-14 years old)

Labyrinth (click on the picture!)

MY-SHOP
The submarine "Pioneer" passes through two oceans from Leningrad to Vladivostok to strengthen the defense of the Soviet Far Eastern borders.
A courageous team led by the captain resists numerous enemy attempts to capture and destroy the submarine. Serious and dangerous trials await brave sailors, among whom was fourteen-year-old Pavlik. Thanks to their unity and fortitude, the heroes manage to overcome the bombardment, fight the giant octopus, the prehistoric lizard, and win the battle with the traitor.

Bookshelves by age from 0 to 12+ can be viewed here

Compiling hundreds of the most important science fiction books required much more effort from our editors than similar lists of games, films and TV shows. No wonder, because books are the foundation of all world fiction. As before, the main criterion for us was the significance of this or that work for world and domestic science fiction.

Our list includes only those books and cycles that have become universally recognized pillars of science fiction literature or have had a significant impact on the development of individual science fiction trends. At the same time, we did not give in to the temptation to attribute the main contribution to science fiction to English-speaking authors: almost a fifth of our list is occupied by books by Russian masters of the word.

So, before you are those 100 books that, according to MirF, any self-respecting fan of science fiction is simply obliged to read!

FOREIGNERS OF FANTASTIC

Jonathan Swift "Gulliver's Travels"

A novel that paved the way for the authors of many fantastic trends - from satire to alternative geography. And what is the cost of detailed construction of worlds! "Gulliver's Travels" cannot be squeezed only on a fantastic shelf - this is a phenomenon of universal culture. True, most of us are only familiar with the adapted version, which is part of the "golden fund" of children's literature.

Mary Shelley "Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus"

The book of an English lady, the wife of a famous poet, written "on a dare". Percy Shelley and his friend Byron failed, and the 20-year-old girl wrote one of the most famous "Gothic" novels. But the matter was not limited to one gothic! The story of the Swiss scientist Victor Frankenstein, who learned how to animate dead tissue with electricity, is considered the first truly science fiction work.

Lewis Carroll "Alice in Wonderland"

A fairy tale for children, invented by an English mathematician, had a huge impact on the development of science fiction. Satirical absurdism, an abundance of paradoxes, other dimensions - Carroll's book included many topics that were repeatedly used by science fiction writers of subsequent generations. Carroll's influence on English-speaking culture is especially great - in terms of the number of citations, the stories about Alice are second only to Shakespeare.

Jules Verne "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea"

One of the most famous books of the founding father of SF. Of course, you can put a few more of his novels side by side - "Journey to the Center of the Earth", "From the Earth to the Moon", "Robur the Conqueror", but it is "20 thousand ..." that combines scientific and technical predictions that have come true, a fascinating adventurous plot, cognition and a bright character, whose name has become a household name. Who doesn't know Captain Nemo and his Nautilus?

Robert Louis Stevenson "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde"

The story of two opposite halves of a single personality, at the same time - a moralizing parable about the duality of progress and the responsibility of science to society (later this topic was developed by G. Wells in The Invisible Man and The Island of Dr. Moreau). Stevenson cleverly combined elements of sci-fi, gothic horror and philosophical romance. The result is a book that spawned a lot of imitations and made the image of Jekyll Hyde a household name.

Mark Twain "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court"

Another classic that combines a satire on the writer's contemporary society and a brilliant embodiment of several fantastic ideas, later replicated by hundreds of authors. Time travel, alternative history, the idea of ​​a clash of cultures, the dubiousness of progressorism as a way to change an "inert" society - everything fits under one cover.

Bram Stoker "Dracula"

A novel about vampires that spawned an ocean of imitations in literary and cinematic fiction. The Irish Stoker showed the world an example of a competent "black PR". He took the true figure of the Wallachian ruler - a person of little sympathy, but in historical terms quite ordinary - and created from him a monster with a capital letter, whose name in the mass consciousness is placed somewhere between Lucifer and Hitler.

SCIENCE FICTION

HG Wells "War of the Worlds"

A classic work that opened several directions in science fiction at once. This is the first book about the invasion of the Earth by merciless "aliens". However, Wells went beyond the "war of the worlds" theme. The writer creates an impressive gallery of behavioral models of people in extreme conditions of the threat of total destruction hanging over them. Before us is actually a prediction of the development of society in the period of the coming world wars.

Isaac Asimov, Future History series

The first monumental history of the future in the world science fiction, the most striking part of which is the Foundation trilogy (Hugo award as the best fantasy series of all time). Asimov tried to reduce the development of civilization to a set of laws similar to mathematical formulas. The saviors of mankind are not generals and politicians, but scientists - adherents of the science of "psychohistory". And the action of the entire series covers 20 thousand years!

Robert Heinlein "Starship Troopers"

The novel caused a serious scandal, because many liberals saw in it propaganda of militarism and even fascism. Heinlein was a staunch libertarian whose idea of ​​responsibility to society coexisted with the rejection of the total restriction of personal freedom by the state. "Starship Troopers" is not just a reference "military war" about battles with strangers, but also a reflection of the writer's ideas about an ideal society, where duty is above all.

Alfred Elton Van Vogt "Slan"

The first significant work on biological mutations that threaten humanity with the transition to a new stage of evolution. Naturally, ordinary people are not ready to just go to the dustbin of history, so mutant slans have a hard time. The situation is complicated by the fact that slans are the fruit of genetic engineering. Will mankind itself give birth to its own gravedigger?

John Wyndham "Day of the Triffids"

The epitome of a sci-fi "disaster novel". As a result of a cosmic cataclysm, almost all earthlings became blind and turned into prey for predatory plants. End of civilization? No, the British science fiction novel is imbued with faith in the power of the human spirit. Say, "Let's join hands, friends, so as not to disappear one by one"! The book started a wave of similar (though often more pessimistic) stories.

Walter Miller "The Leibovitz Passion"

Classic post-apocalyptic epic. After a nuclear war, the only bulwark of knowledge and culture remains the church in the person of the Order of St. Leibowitz, founded by a physicist. The action of the book takes place over a thousand years: civilization is gradually reborn in order to perish again ... A sincere believer, Miller looks with deep pessimism at the ability of religion to bring real salvation to humanity.

Robert Merle "Maleville"

The most meticulous chronicle of the existence of an ordinary person in the world after a nuclear war. A group of people, once in the Malville castle, survive day after day on the ruins of civilization. Alas, their robinsonade is absolutely hopeless. No one will fly in from the "mainland", will not save, will not return forever lost. And not in vain, having won a series of brilliant victories, the main character dies of a banal appendicitis. The world is dead - and there is no future ...

Isaac Asimov, I, Robot

Asimov's stories about robots developed the theme raised by Karel Capek in the play R.U.R. - about the relationship between man and artificial intelligence. The Three Laws of Robotics are the ethical basis for the existence of artificial creatures, capable of suppressing the "Frankenstein complex" (an implicit desire to destroy one's Creator). These are not just stories about thinking pieces of iron, but a book about people, their moral throwing and spiritual experiments.

Philip K. Dick "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?"

The first example of genuine cyberpunk, which appeared long before the birth of the term itself and the fantastic phenomenon it designated. The acid-gloomy world of the future, whose inhabitants constantly question the meaning and even the reality of their own existence, are themes that are characteristic of this novel, and of Dick's entire work. And the book served as the basis for Ridley Scott's cult film Blade Runner.

William Gibson Neuromancer

The holy book of cyberpunk, where there are almost all of its iconic signs. Brilliantly depicted high-tech near future, in which predatory multinational corporations hold power and cybercrime flourishes. Gibson acted as a real prophet of the digital age that has come today, not only foreseeing the problems of information technology development, but also introducing specific computer jargon into wide circulation.

Arthur Clarke "2001: A Space Odyssey"

Based on an old story, Arthur C. Clarke wrote the screenplay for Stanley Kubrick's film - the first real sci-fi epic of world cinema. And novelization has become a symbol of serious space science fiction. No Star Wars, no superheroes with blasters. A realistic story about an expedition to Jupiter, during which the machine mind reaches its limit, but a person is able to go beyond any limits of the possible.

Michael Crichton "Jurassic Park"

Crichton is considered the father of the science fiction techno-thriller. "Jurassic Park" is not the first work of its kind, but one of the most famous, largely due to the adaptation of Steven Spielberg. Being essentially a skillful combination of themes and ideas repeatedly worked out in science fiction - genetic engineering, cloning, rebellion of artificial creatures - the novel has gained millions of fans and many imitations.

PHILOSOPHICAL AND SOCIAL FICTION

HG Wells "Time Machine"

One of the cornerstones of modern SF is the book that pioneered the exploitation of the theme of time travel. Wells also tried to continue his contemporary capitalism into the distant future, in which humanity was divided into two biological species. Even more than the strange society of Eloi and Morlocks, the "end of times" shakes, which marks the complete death of the mind.

Evgeny Zamyatin "We"

The first great dystopia that influenced other classics - Huxley and Orwell, not to mention the many science fiction writers who try to critically predict the development of society. The action of the story takes place in a pseudo-utopia, where the role of a person is reduced to the position of an insignificant cog. The result is an "ideal" anthill society in which "one is zero, one is nonsense."

Aldous Huxley "Brave New World"

One of the foundations of literary dystopia. Unlike his contemporaries, who exposed specific political models, Huxley's novel polemicized with idealistic views about the perfection of technocracy. The intellectuals who have seized power will build another version of the concentration camp - albeit a decent-looking one. Alas, our modern society confirms the correctness of Huxley.

George Orwell "1984"

Another classic dystopian novel inspired by the grim events of World War II. Perhaps now in all corners of the world they heard the terms “Big Brother” and “Newspeak” coined by Orwell. "1984" is a satirical depiction of absolute totalitarianism, no matter what ideology - socialist, capitalist or Nazi - it is covered.

Ray Bradbury Fahrenheit 451

A dystopia based on not political or social, but cultural ideas. A society is shown where true culture has fallen victim to pragmatic rednecks: animal materialism has unconditionally triumphed over romantic idealism. Firefighters burning books is another iconic image of modern civilization. The events of recent years show that the novel is threatened with the fate of not a warning, but a prophecy!

Kurt Vonnegut "Slaughterhouse Five"

A masterpiece of anti-war fiction (and literature in general). The hero of the book is the author's alter ego Billy Pilgrim, a war veteran who survived the barbaric bombing of Dresden. Abducted by aliens, the hero only with their help will be able to recover from a nervous shock and find inner peace. The fantastic plot of the book is just a technique with which Vonnegut fights the inner demons of his generation.

Robert Heinlein "Stranger in a Strange Land"

First sf book to become a national bestseller in the United States. This is the story of "cosmic Mowgli" - the earthly child of Michael Valentine Smith, who was brought up by representatives of a fundamentally different mind and became the new Messiah. In addition to the obvious artistic merit and the discovery of many topics forbidden for science fiction, the significance of the novel is that it finally turned the public perception of SF as literature for immature minds.

Stanislav Lem "Solaris"

The flagship of philosophical science fiction. The book of a remarkable Polish writer tells about an unsuccessful contact with a civilization that is absolutely alien to us. Lem created one of the most unusual SF-worlds - a single mind of the planet-ocean Solaris. And you can take thousands of samples, put hundreds of experiments, put forward dozens of theories - the truth will remain "out there, beyond the horizon." Science is simply not able to unravel all the secrets of the universe - no matter how you try ...

Ray Bradbury "The Martian Chronicles"

A multifaceted cycle about the conquest of Mars by man, where a strange and once great civilization is living its last days. This is a poetic story about the clash of two different cultures, and reflections on the eternal problems and values ​​of our existence. "The Martian Chronicles" is one of the books that clearly demonstrates that science fiction is able to touch upon the most complex problems and can compete on equal terms with "big" literature.

Ursula Le Guin, Hein cycle

One of the brightest stories of the future, a masterpiece of "soft" SF. Unlike traditional space fantasy scenarios, Le Guin's relationship between civilizations is based on a special ethical code that excludes the use of violence. The works of the cycle tell about contacts between representatives of different psychologies, philosophies and cultures, as well as about their everyday life. The most significant part of the cycle is the novel The Left Hand of Darkness (1969).

Orson Scott Card "Ender's Game", "Voice of the Missing"

The two novels, followed by the popular but controversial multi-volume cycle, are true masterpieces, the pinnacle of Card's work. "Ender's Game" is a modernized "military" with an emphasis on the psychology of growing up as a charismatic teenage leader. And “Voice…” is, first of all, a story of contact, mutual understanding of fundamentally different cultures. Everyone wants the best; Why do good intentions turn into tragedy?

Henry Lyon Oldie, The Abyss of Hungry Eyes

The first multi-layered philosophical and mythological work in modern Russian science fiction, The Abyss of Hungry Eyes includes various areas of science fiction and fantasy. Creating the universe, the co-authors use a variety of mythological schemes, combining a strong adventurous plot and well-developed characters with a philosophical understanding of current events.

I am not always willing to respond to a request to write a preface to a new book. This case is a rare exception. The author of this work is my late friend Sybil Birkhäuser. I am sure that people can learn a lot of valuable knowledge from this text.

C. G. Jung was very succinct in formulating his thoughts and his scientific discoveries, so it is often difficult to understand how they relate to people's everyday problems, although Jung wrote about these problems.

In writing this book, Sybill Birkhäuser applied her "feminine approach" based primarily on emotional sensation; using this approach, she explored the figure, image and role of the mother both in real life and in the human psyche. This book, based on the concepts of Jung, gives many women a clear understanding of feminine issues. However, it is also important for men to know these archetypal connections, since their problems caused by the mother complex are closely related to the development and manifestation of their creative abilities. In addition, as shown in the last chapter, behind many spiritual creative and destructive phenomena is the universal image of the goddess - the Great Mother.

Sybill Birkhäuser's book is not a psychological study of European folklore. The author compares unconscious mental processes with the dynamics of mythological and fairy-tale images, clarifying much of what was previously inaccessible to our consciousness. This material is directly related to many psychological problems, Sybill Birkhäuser has collected it bit by bit over many years, based on her own experience, her individual analysis and the clinical practice of a Jungian analyst.

This book is written to help people, and I am convinced that it achieves this goal. For many, she will be a source of light in a darkness full of dangers and false hopes, menacing images of the "world of mothers."

Marie-Louise von Franz

1. Introduction

You can read fairy tales in different ways: being carried away by their plots and images, conducting anthropological research, for educational purposes, etc. The psychologist is faced with the question: what can be learned from a fairy tale about the human psyche? Psychologists believe that in fairy-tale images and plots there is a hidden, deep meaning, which is far from obvious at first glance. In this book, it is revealed by the methods of Jungian psychology.

When studying fairy tales, one should first of all form an idea of ​​​​the people in whose imagination these fairy tales arose. Most of them were close to nature. Fairy tales were not written with a specific intention in mind; on the contrary, they were created spontaneously and gradually acquired a modern form thanks to numerous retellings, therefore their themes are universal, and the fairy-tale language is saturated with symbolic images typical of the unconscious.

But if fairy tales are born in the deep layers of the unconscious and affect common spiritual strings, this does not mean that they are easy to understand. They don't divulge their secrets so easily, and for good reason. People from the distant past, in whose imagination they were created, due to their closeness to nature, had a completely different mentality than modern people.

Like a dream, a fairy tale is an unconscious product of the imagination. The difference lies in the fact that this is not a product of the imagination of one particular person, but the result of the collective creativity of many people, perhaps an entire nation. In other words, it is connected with the problems of more than one person, which means that it is more universal in its content than most dreams.

Interpreting a certain dream, the analyst works with the problems of a particular person, he knows that in a dream the unconscious suggests ways to solve them. Being a product of the collective imagination of many people, fairy tales accumulate the dreams of all mankind and contain solutions to various universal problems. Fairy tales provide an opportunity to comprehend typical emotional dramas, and fairy tale images are present in the psyche of any person. Anyone who wants to find meaning in fairy tales does not look for solutions to personal problems, which would be trivial, but goes deeper into the foundations of human existence.

Fairy tales contain an idea of ​​a healthy spiritual life, which we lack so much. From the point of view of psychology, this is the path to the unconscious, which should be found anew. The analysis of fairy tales, like the analysis of dreams, is an attempt to bridge the unconscious, to the realm of the richest inner images. Many people no longer grasp the meaning of fairy-tale images that have ceased to be understandable to them. The inexhaustible source of knowledge contained in fairy tales has become inaccessible to us, so their value has decreased. However, efforts can still be made to restore what has been lost, and these efforts will pay off many times over.

We learned from Jung that the unconscious contains more than just repressed psychic content. Studying the human soul, he realized that everything new that appears in the human psyche is a product of the activity of the unconscious, an inexhaustible source of mental and spiritual life. This idea is key to Jungian psychology. It creates an attitude towards the unconscious as a real active force that can carry both good and evil.

All fairy-tale characters: fairies, dragons, witches and gnomes are archetypal images that exist in the deepest layers of the psyche. Whether we are aware of it or not, they affect us because they are a psychological reality. The Jungian interpretation does not provide a full explanation of them, but draws them in to find a way to an inner experience that is embodied in a symbolic, fairy-tale form.

Fabulous events reflect a living psychological reality. Having separated ourselves from the world of images, we will cut off our path to the main source of our internal energy.

Deep in the human unconscious is a storehouse of knowledge, or universal spiritual experience, which can enrich us if we gain access to it. Jung called this level of the psyche the collective unconscious, the level of archetypes.

The analysis of fairy tales is one of the approaches to working with archetypal ideas and characters of the collective unconscious. To satisfy the requirements of consciousness and its intellectual abstractions, fairy-tale images must find their expression in psychological terms. Much less can be expressed through abstract concepts than through a colorful image, but for a person who is not too well versed in the world of symbols, they can become a means of knowledge.

The interpretation of fairy tales is an attempt to identify extremely deep and expressive messages hidden in the depths of the psyche by comparing them with myths, religious ideas and dreams. In essence, the interpretation of fairy tales is an indication of what modern people often cannot see for themselves. Today, we are mostly inhabited by the upper floors of our psychological structure, which means that we are cut off from our roots, from our foundation.

Fairy tales allow you to re-evaluate the fundamental foundations of the psyche. Therefore, they tell about the well-known, very simple and clear. “Then,” some of us may wonder, “why should they be interpreted at all?” Perhaps because it was their simplicity, to which we are so accustomed, that blocked their way to the world of consciousness.

Some people believe that a normal fairy tale simply cannot deal with serious issues and that interpreters see a lot of things in it that it does not. Personally, I treat interpretation as a kind of translation. The better and more accurately a person translates, the more amazing things he discovers for himself. Why not? The natural scientist, as a result of painstaking work, also discovers processes that are the result of the action of the mind of nature unknown to him, and the power of this mind exceeds the intelligence of the scientist. Is it amazing? Why can't there be an intelligence somewhere that surpasses the capabilities of our mind? And why can't we get closer to the wisdom of the unconscious? We do the same when interpreting dreams. We simply cannot understand our patient's problem until we carefully analyze his dreams. It is they who often make it clear exactly what his problem is.

My personal perception:
- Strugatsky - read everything, start with "Monday starts on Saturday", "Picnic on the roadside", "It's hard to be a god"
- Garrison - cycles "Steel Rat", "World of Death" and the novel "Fantastic Saga". If you like this, you can read the rest. And God forbid you start with the cycle "Bill - the Hero of the Galaxy." Yes, it has practically nothing to do with "science fiction".
- Bradbury is a pseudo-philosophy greatly inflated by PR. All books - a complete lack of logic and common sense. In addition, the books are very outdated "technically", and even in the "new" form they were unreadable for techies due to the presence of a huge number of technical blunders. For those who have not read - 451 degrees Fahrenheit is the most interesting for the first acquaintance. Dystopia, blunders are not so visible, well, the classics of science fiction are already, as it is a shame not to read. The scientific nature of books is at zero, social - yes, scientific - no.
- Asimov - science fiction, no doubt, scientific, but very outdated. Moreover, it is outdated not because we can do what is described in books, but because it has been proven and explored that it is impossible to do this, or unprofitable, or nafig not necessary. If we ignore the "technical" details and absurdities, then you can read it, but at present it is not so interesting anymore. It’s worth starting with cycles about robots, there are still interesting stories there. "Foundation" - only for fans of Asimov
Arthur Clarke is a very strong writer. A real SF, a classic of the genre. You should still start not with the Odyssey, but with the novels "Sands of Mars" and "Moon Dust"
- John Wyndham. Day of the Triffids. - a great disaster novel. Absolutely does not interfere with what is written about the more "old" time. In pursuit, I can advise John Christopher Death of Grass.
— Frank Herbert. Dune. - This is, of course, a whole era. But it has nothing to do with NF. I would call Fantasy in sci-fi setting. The book is interesting, but strongly on the fan. Either you like it or you don't.
- Flowers for Algernon. Daniel Keyes - Yes, a must read. Rather social, but also belongs to the National Front.
- Belyaev should be read in total. NF no doubt. Outdated, but even now it is very relevant, and the ideas are very interesting. Classic
- Lukyanenko and Bushkov are very interesting books, but not SF. If Lukyanenko is somewhere else somehow, then Bushkov is a complete pipe in this regard. Action and space adventurers (sometimes virtual adventurers). Lukyanenko's most successful are the cycles "Deeptown" and "Lord from Planet Earth", as well as the novel co-authored with Perumov "No Time for Dragons"
- Heinlein - yes. Cool. It can be attributed to NF with great interference, but still. It’s worth starting with “The Stepchildren of the Universe”, “Double Star”, “The Moon Hardly Lays”, “Door to Summer” (required!), “Star Beast”, “I have a spacesuit - ready to travel”, “Space Rangers” (exactly in this translation), "The Martian Podkane". I must add that all the film adaptations of his books are very sucks and only confuse fans of science fiction and anger fans of Heinlein
- Stanislav Lem. - an excellent writer. More like a philosophy, but SF is still there. Solaris is definitely worth a read. I can add to the list to read: "Tales of Pilot Pirks" (technically outdated, otherwise not), "Eden", "Invincible". If you like it - feel free to read everything from Lem - you won't regret it
- Martin is a very average writer, nevertheless very popular. It has very little to do with NF. Desert Kings is one of his strongest songs.
- Simak is a very strong author, but again, he is not a sci-fi author even once. Although he is considered the founding father of American SF. But everything needs to be read.
- Dan Simmons - very powerful, exciting, but not for everyone.

Not in the review of excellent Soviet NF authors:
- Obruchev - "Plutonia, Sannikov Land"
- Kazantsev - cycles Georgy Sedov, "Polar opposition", "Planet of Storms"
- Snegov "- the cycle "People are like gods"
- Pavlov - cycle "Moon Rainbow"
- Nemtsov is a short-range fantasy, a lot has already been done, but nevertheless
- Georgy Martynov - "Stargazers", "Guest from the Abyss", "Callisto", "Spiral of Time"
- Adamov - "Winners of the Subsoil", "The Secret of Two Oceans"
- Evgeny Voiskunsky, Isai Lukodyanov ("Ur, the son of Sham" is one of my favorite books)
- and many others.

And from imports:
Where is Jules Verne?
- Larry Niven "Ring World"
- Paul Anderson. I can’t say that NF is strong, but much closer than many of the presented
- etc.