It's hard to be a god

A tale of power, progress and destiny in a dark medieval kingdom

In the middle of the 22nd century, Earth civilization reached the peak of its development - technological, cultural and moral. People have forgotten what wars, diseases and hunger are. Their spaceships roam the galaxy in search of undiscovered planets and civilisations. A group of historians from Earth have set up base on a planet whose human population is at late medieval levels. One of these explorers, Anton, works in the kingdom of Arkanar, where he masquerades as a nobleman. Surrounded by misery in this dirty and cruel world, he tries to find and protect the glimmers of a bright future - a future that has become a reality on his home planet. As a historian, he knows the laws of history and knows that progress cannot be hastened. While he wields a power that seems almost divine in Arkanar, he is bound by unrelenting rules. From the flames of obscurantism, only a select few can be saved...

It's Hard to Be a God represents one of the most famous and impressive novels of Russian-language fiction, comparable perhaps only to Picnic by the Road by the same authors.