Popular science-fiction writers, the Strugatsky brothers have used the genre since the 1960s to comment on contemporary society, at times provoking major controversy. It's Hard to Be a God (1964) is a dysutopia with commentary on historical theories. The Snail on the Slope (1966--68) features a KGB-like organization and an extraordinarily oppressive atmosphere. Pre-glasnost, glasnost, some of the Strugatskys' major works had to be circulated in samizdat, but the brothers' situation is now dramatically better.
Jeffrey Scott VanderMeer was born on July 7, 1968 in Pennsylvania. He is an editor, writer, teacher and publisher. He is known for his contributions to the New Weird and his stories about the city of Ambergris, in books such as City of Saints and Madmen. He has also authored the series The Southern Reach Trilogy. VanderMeer is the founding editor and publisher of the Ministry of Whimsy Press. One of the Ministry's publications, The Troika by Stepan Chapman, won the Philip K. Dick Award in 1997. VanderMeer's reviews and essays have appeared in The Washington Post Book World and Publishers Weekly. He is a regular columnist for the Amazon book-culture blog, and has served as a judge for the… Eisner Awards. VanderMeer has also started to experiment in other media, resulting in a movie based on his novel Shriek. His title Finch was nominated for the 2009 Nebula Award for Best Novel. VanderMeer is working on a new series of novels entitled "Southern Reach." The first Southern Reach novel, Annihilation was published in February 2014, and the second novel in the series, Authority, was published on 6 May 2014. The last novel, Acceptance, is planned for September 2014.