Product Description

Trained as a cosmonaut for the Soviet space programme, the hero of this novel, whose name combines the Russian word for special police force and the Ancient Egyptian sun god, finds that his mission to the moon develops unexpectedly, and builds to a bizarre conclusion.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #201919 in Books
• Published on: 2002-03-18
• Original language: Russian
• Binding: Paperback
• 160 pages

Customer Reviews

Astronomically good...
Victor Pelevin is a stunning writer. His satires of Soviet and post-Soviet Russia are so witty, so surreal, and so exact. This is his best perhaps: a funny and tragic take on the Russian space programme, following a group of Soviet youths preparing for a moon landing. His fascination with drugs and psychosis and the plain wierd might bring to mind Will Self, but unlike that mediocre writer, Pelevin has a genuine sense of compassion. Perhaps his greatest talent is that, no matter how far-fetched and extreme he gets, he never loses touch with the humanity of his characters. He makes us care about them. He can also be a heartbreaking writer, and never more so than in this book. Read it!

Thoughtful, touching, satirical
This was a novel I encountered in my search for fiction and sci-fi from russia and eastern europe, to vary my usual diet of british and american offerings in the same genre. I'm glad that I did.
Omon Ra is entertainment from start to finish, following the main character Omon from early childhood right through to his adventure into the unknown. It's hard to say much about this without revealing huge pieces of the plot (and I just hate reviews which do that), but there's a lot more packed in these pages than just the basic story premise.
It's one of those books that can be read on more than one level. It explores friendship, patriotism, the influence of authority and the burning desire to explore the unknown (and the known). It's bleak and depressing at times, and at others it's emotional and very touching.
This was the first of Pelevin's novels that I've read, and it's a certainty to say that it will not be the last.

Scary ideology
This book is the most convincing and because of this, perhaps the scariest exploration of ideology I have ever read. It draws you into its surreal world which is also a metaphor (or perhaps not? maybe a realistic rendering?) of a world drenched in ideology. In that sense, it's very post-Soviet. It starts out light-hearted and ends as a nightmare, with completely shocking (to me) plot twists and heartbreaking moments along the way. About the hopelessness of achieving anything but of keeping going, nevertheless, and of values that transcend death. I read this last year and it still haunts me.