Before I go on, I must just clarify that despite the potentially misleading facts that the two authors have Russian names and the Esperanto translation of their novel was published in Russia, they are both actually Russian. I can see that diligent Esperantists might be misled by such evidence and assume that they must be German, but as far as Russian sci-fi goes, this pair of brothers are quite famous and their nationality is beyond question That joke made, one might be forgiven for thinking they were Greek. Reading the story, it seems difficult to imagine it being set anywhere other than in Soviet Russia and yet the names of all the characters are distinctly un-Russian. Artemisia and Hxarono jumped out at me in particular as being names from Greek mythology, and so I suspect that this is a book full of classical allusions which I am not well educated enough to understand

The novel consists of diary entries by an elderly man living in a small provincial town. He has spent his whole life working as a schoolmaster, having retired so recently that the arrangements for his pension still haven’t been finalised. He was a soldier in what I assume is meant to have been the Second World War (the book was published in 1966) and has a healthy dislike of fascists. He’s not a very exciting sort – he’s passionate about stamp collecting and starts each diary entry with meticulous readings from his weather station – but nevertheless he seems pleasant enough. One night he is awakened by strange earthquake-like rumblings shaking his house, and upon looking out of the window he sees what appears to be an enormous fire on the horizon. The entire town is awakened and proceeds to run around like headless chickens. No one knows what is happening; is it an atomic war, a volcanic eruption, a firework display? The authorities can’t or won’t explain. Things calm down, but the next day rumours spread like wildfire…

Amongst the most bizarre of these rumours is the idea that the region has just been invaded by Martians. There are reports of a neighbouring town being destroyed during the night by strange aliens who want to cut people open and drink their gastric juices. An atmosphere of hysteria prevails, where every person has a conflicting version of recent events and a personal theory to explain them. But in the midst of this, normal life continues. Our narrator is more concerned about the affair his daughter appears to be having with a town clerk and the amount of pension he might be awarded than whether he is about to be murdered by extra terrestrials.

Bit by bit, strange things start to happen. The media appears to have been taken over. First in publishes a series of articles about the disadvantages of wheat, then every other article seems to be on the theme of gastric juices and how one should not pollute them by taking medication. Next thing we know, farmers are being paid to dig up their wheat harvest and plant a new type of grain. Sack loads of this have been delivered to the town hall, seemingly by the mysterious new rulers.

Rather than being disconcerted by this development, the farmers are rather chuffed. They are compensated for their entire wheat harvest and paid up front to plant the new, blue grain. What more could they want?! Soon the blue grain is harvested and begins to produce blue bread… Meanwhile a bunch of doctors set up in town with the purpose of draining people of unnecessary stomach juices. At first, this is not something people are prepared to volunteer for… and then it becomes clear that there is money involved. The new rulers are prepared to pay cash for certain volumes of gastric juice. No one knows what they want it for, but the money is enough to make it socially acceptable. Within a few days the population of the town is queuing up to donate and make extra cash. Before long, gastric juice almost becomes the currency of the region. Tax can be paid in gastric juice. Pensions may also be received in it, our narrator discovers, when he goes to enquire.

As the novel progresses, the situation in the town becomes increasingly stable. Where at first there was horror and panic in the form of a local uprising to defend their land against Martian invaders, by the end nobody seems to care. The general consensus of the population is that life is at least as good under this administration as under the last one. Better perhaps, because one can now earn money with gastric juice. We never find out what the Martians are using it for. We never find out if they really are Martians, where they came from and what they want. The townsfolk are too preoccupied about the minutae of daily life to care about the bigger picture. The attitude is captured well in one line of the narrator’s in which it occurs to him that a change in government means that new stamps will be printed. He devotes more time to thinking about the impact of this on his stamp collection than the fact that he appears to be living in a totalitarian regime with a censored media where no one knows who is actually pulling the strings.

The message of the story? I’m not sure. This was scarcely sci-fi; that is to say, it isn’t some sort of adventure story with aliens and space ships, but rather a study of how ordinary people react to political events. Despite the Russian angle, I interpreted more of the comments as refering to Nazi Germany than to communism but I guess a lot of it was relevant to both. The idea of people burying their heads in the sand, submerging themselves in the detail of daily life to the extent that they don’t know or care that a dark power is taking control of their government. Being prepared to turn a blind eye to all sorts of oddities, so long as that government is providing them with work and food. Being gradually brainwashed…

It was interesting. In Geneva I couldn’t get on with it at all because I found the Esperanto inaccessible. The translator seemed never to have used a normal word order where an abnormal one would do worse After a few pages my brain became exhausted with the mental gymnastics required to decode even the simplest of sentences. But I think to some extent that was my fault for trying to read it in an environment where there were too many external distractions for me to properly concentrate. Reading it in the peace and quiet of my own home this weekend, I found it a lot easier to follow and by the time I had got halfway I was sufficiently into the style to actually enjoy it. I was particularly pleased to come across multiple uses of liva as opposed to maldekstra to translate left. Liva is an infinitely superior word, and it should be used at every opportunity

It some ways it *was* a frustrating book to read. I didn’t build an affinity with any of the characters, and I found it frustrating never to find out whether there had really been a Martian invasion or not. I think that it is a book which might improve on the second reading, but I don’t think I have the motivation to tackle it again right now! If anyone else has read it, I would just like to point out that the above is my opinion only; without learning Russian, I don’t think I can read anyone else’s review to find out what other people think it is supposed to be about…

Actually, if anyone else has read it I’d be grateful if the could explain why it’s called ‘The Second Invasion of the Martians’. When was the first invasion?! Is there some sort of political implication there, or is this a series in which I’ve missed the first book?

I didn’t think I’d ever say this, but it honestly wasn’t a bad read in the end and I would recommend it to others, albeit tentatively