Space Apprentice

The episodic novel interns (Russian Стажеры ) is an early work of Soviet science fiction writers Arkady and Boris Strugatsky. 1962 appeared the work is still very steeped in the typical time and in the former Soviet Union particularly strong technology and a belief in progress. After nuclear volcano Golkonda, The road to Amalthea interns is the third and final novel of the Strugatsky brothers, which is attributed to the genus of hard science fiction. With all the other works they turn to the soft science fiction.

Content

The young vacuum welder Jura to fly with a group of other young engineers to a space station near the planet Saturn, but missed due to family reasons connection to his group. By happy coincidence, however, he is given the opportunity to fly with with Jurkowski, the Inspector General of an international space - control authority. On this flight through the planetary system he experienced all kinds of adventures that make him mature in many ways.

The adventures are partly tangible such as a hunt for " Marsegel " on the planet Mars using grenades and flamethrowers or explosives experiments on the asteroid Eunomia, which attends Jura. Some of these are - such as the representation of the feelings Juras during an alert exercise at the spacecraft - about experiences that lead away already to issues of internal, personal development of the trainee, so rather the soft science fiction attributable to the technique fixation of other adventures passages. The latter illustrates the intern experience about the meaning of regulations. So it is in this work also a coming of age novel.

On the planetoid Bamberga Jura experienced a remnant of the dark world of capitalism: Without regard for human life here, " Space Pearl " in radioactive environments are degraded. The Inspector General continues from the Director General of the company, but it meets with resistance from the majority of blind workers, the majority of which only fear a reduction in their earning potential.

Even in our own ranks but there are black sheep. The Observatory Dione reveal an intern and Inspector General, as the station manager 's shear and its ally get selfish reasons spiteful rumors, the young researchers instill self-doubt and so rob the natural fun at work. Of course, the Inspector General ensures justice and sends the culprits back to earth.

In the last adventure of the book Jurkowski persuaded the captain Bykov to approve him a ride with Mikhail Antonovich Krutikow as a pilot in a small spacecraft to Saturn's rings. When he makes a sensational discovery there he ignores all safety regulations and the urgent requests Bykov to return what he and Mikhail Antonovich Krutikow pay with his life.

The world of the novel

The exact time of the novel's action is not specified, but it is probably around the early 21st century, as one of the older protagonists still remembers his first Saturn flight 1999. The victory of socialism is already evident, though not yet complete. There are also some capitalist areas and niches such as asteroids Bamberga whose foreseeable demise is not itself challenged by each of its residents. The socialist areas, however, are evident in the transition to communism. The majority of the population works enthusiastically and without looking at personal gain in his areas of interest. For them - and intern Jura is one of them - it is clear that the fulfillment of a life in a fulfilling job is. The researchers on the asteroid Eunomia about to go so in their research that they take the frequently insufficient food supply there, or confinement to their research station uncomplainingly up. The narrowness there is so great that one of them even have to stay in the elevator - a fact that they seek to hide from the Inspector General so that none of them have to leave the completely overcrowded station.

As a negative image of this nascent development in "new socialist man ", the " bourgeois " are presented which are satisfied when they have a bit of entertainment and little work. These philistines are also pervasive "nor" to see the capitalist areas, but in the socialist. Completely free are the main characters of scruples, which are so characteristic of later works of Strugazkis. For example, none of the people involved has any concerns in relation to the planned extermination of the " Marsegel " that hinder research and how nothing is so well known about their nature. At most carried the remark that the prevention of the use of flamethrowers in their destruction have the advantage that such a thing is still left for biologists - the reader gets the impression that here comes that biologists can live out their research interest. A larger difference about the scruples of the "hunter " in the same, later narrative of Strugazkis who suffers all his life in the first possibility, which killed him on an alien planet "cattle" could have been an intelligent living beings under circumstances, hardly conceivable. That man is the pinnacle of evolution and is now rushes towards ever greater spiritual heights of development and technical perspective at any point. Even the discovery of the possibility that certain ruins on Mars may were built by extraterrestrial intelligent beings, is mentioned more on the edge and is therefore little sensational.

Classification in the complete works

Interns is connected by the people Alexei Bykov and Mikhail Antonovich Krutikow with the previous novels Atom volcano Golkonda, The road to Amalthea. Both Bykov and Ivan Shilin also appear in later works, Shilin about in The greedy things of the century. With interns the early days of the Strugatsky narratives ends. As stated above plays the work in a transitional period in the Strugazkis now close the stories and novels of the " world of the South " to in which no trace exists of capitalism, the internal contradictions and scruples of the people involved but increasing. " Trainees " can also be viewed as a transitional work.

German editions

• Interns. Fantastic novel, translated from the Russian by Aljonna Moeckel and Erik Simon, structure -Taschenbuch -Verlag, Berlin 1994. ISBN 3-7466-1026-5 ( construction Handbooks Vol 1026)
• Interns, included in The World of the South, Volume 2: Captain Bykov. Golkonda, Berlin, 2013, ISBN 978-3-942396-23-3 ( also includes The Way to Amalthea, first complete German edition; reconstructed on the basis of manuscripts, uncensored and unedited version, complete with a getrichenes chapter; Comment by Boris Strugatsky, epilogue and notes by Erik Simon )