Good, but poor in the end.

The ending of this novel was not exactly on parr with the rest of the book. As the mystery progresses you are takin in, making guesses of your own, wild interpretations of what the clues really meant, and then everything is wrong and just twisted and stupid. I won’t spoil anything of course but the ending does not make it not worth a read if you like Russian science fiction.

46 people found this helpful

SKIP THE INTRODUCTION IF YOU’VE NEVER READ THIS BOOK

I’ve never read a Strugatsky brothers book before but I enjoyed The Dead Mountaineer’s Inn once I got an ear for the pacing and dialogue. The book is full of odd non-sequiturs, mostly in the dialogue, but I imagine most of those arise from cultural differences as well as from the difference between modern, Western writing and the writing style of mid 1900’s Russia. However, by the time I’d finished the book, the quaint, oddball characters had become old friends and I look forward to listening to the book again in the future.
My main complaint was the translator’s wholly unnecessary and (I felt) rather masturbatory introduction, which contained spoiler-filled overviews of the major characters and plot line. It would not have been out of place at the end of the book, but listening to it at the beginning almost caused me to return the book before I’d even made it to the story itself. Even having finished the book now, I feel as if my view of the characters is still tainted by the translator’s opinions of them. Save the introduction for the end if you wish to go into the story with a fresh, unsullied perspective.

36 people found this helpful

Pretty fun read.

I think that the introduction overplays the "abstract" nature of the story. It is strange, but doesn't dwell on its own strangeness very long. It's interesting how two Cold War Russian writers imagined aliens and detective novels.

30 people found this helpful

Interesting and Odd.

Would you try another book from Arkady Strugatsky and Boris Strugatsky and/or Keith Szarabajka?

Road side picnic was better. This one is odd and you should try it out.

Any additional comments?

Worth a read if you're into the genre. It gets better as it goes along and gets really weird by the end.

19 people found this helpful

wonderful well written story

once again the Strugatsky's have amazed me with their incredible emersive story telling. A recommendation for any lover of literature.

11 people found this helpful

Spoof of the murder mystery genre!

Russian brothers Arkady and Boris Strugatsky released this humor novel in 1970 and it was released in English 12 years later. It is actually quite funny as they imitate classic murder mystery novels quite well. Narration is outstanding.

8 people found this helpful

What can I say

I find this really hard to review, I do not know if I really understood this book. It had a hypnotic quality so I finished it, I liked the setting and the feel of it. But am totally confused by the story.

4 people found this helpful

Narrator made this more interesting than it was.

The story started out interesting, the climax was okay, but the relationships between two characters made the ending worthwhile. It's a hard thing to do, but the narrator made it entertaining.

3 people found this helpful

Cute, but

I guess I don't really need aliens to spice up my mystery reads. Science fiction fans would probably get a kick out of this.

2 people found this helpful

Murder on the Mountain

Very interesting in that it is well written but is hard to categorize. It’s sort of science fiction, but not really. It’s a detective story, but more than that. It is reminiscent of “Murder on the Orient Express” in that a police detective is trying to take a holiday and then gets stuck in a situation where there is a murder and it has to be one of a small group of disparate people. However, the detective is not a murder detective but a white-collar crime detective used to finding criminals by examining financial statements, etc. On arriving at the Dead Mountaineer’s Hotel, a secluded resort in an alpine valley only accessible by one road through the gap, he finds that some things seem strange. There’s a rich and eccentric old man and his beautiful wife, a famous illusionist and his niece, a physicist, an attorney, and a few others. Then, late at night, an avalanche blocks the one road and they are trapped. However, not only is there a murder to investigate, the policeman begins to realize that the guests are not what they seem to be. This book was written in Russian and translated into English and is also known as “Inspector Glebsky’s Puzzle.” It was also made into a video game. This was just fun to read.

1 person found this helpful