Sleeping Worlds Have No Memory by Yaroslav Barsukov (w/ the author himself)

The Slavic Literature Pod

Show Notes:

This week, Cameron ascends into the towering heights of imperial politics in Yaroslav Barsukov’s Sleeping Worlds Have No Memory by Yaroslav Barsukov. The novel follows Shea Ashcroft, an imperial minister whose refusal to gas protesting citizenry has earned him a reassignment to a border region to oversee a fantastical military project. With no one truly on his side and managing strange technologies, Ashcrofts finds himself increasingly out of his depth.

Sleeping Worlds Have No Memory includes and expands on Barsukov’s earlier novella Tower of Mud and Straw. It’s been nominated for a Nebula Award and received a Kirkus Reviews star.

Joining Cameron to talk about the novel is Yaroslav himself.

Born and raised in Moscow and now living in Austria for quite some time, Yaroslav’s background is in physics and software engineering. His writing career stems from game design, in a manner of speaking. He took up his pen around 2014 after quite enjoying the work of translating a game’s mythology for a pitch

Major themes: Suspicions of war, alien technologies, memory

10:18 - Barsukov’s interview with the podcast “From the Lighthouse”

26:54 - First correction I’ve had to issue in a while — I misremembered the name of the film, which is actually Protozanov’s “Aelita,” not “Anta Odeli Uta,” which is a phrase in the film.

The music used in this episode was “Старое Кино / Staroye Kino,” by Перемотка / Peremotka. You can find more of their work on Bandcamp and Youtube.

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