has male gender in Russian. The novel would have followed the story of the infiltration of Maxim Kammerer, now a progressor, into the heart of the Island Empire. The Island Empire would have been shown as consisting of several social "circles". While the outer circle represents a fascist militaristic society, the middle circle is a peaceful liberal society, and the inner core is a highly developed harmonic society of intellectuals, similar to the Noon Universe Earth. A special social apparatus directs each citizen of the Empire according to his personality to the circle where he belongs. The book would have shown that this cruel social selection of the Island Empire is the more (or even the only) realistic way for a social utopia to exist, and by contrast would doubt if the Noon Universe's Earth is realistically possible, so much so that it is actually suggested to Maxim by one of the leaders of the Inner Circle (when he finally makes contact with them) that his "Earth" is really an imaginary world, some literary invention that is impossible to have existed in the real world (serving as the authors' final judgement upon their own creation). Two other sequels exist, Beetle in the Anthill and The Time Wanderers, but their plots are almost independent from the first book: while they have the common characters, Maxim Kammerer and Rudolf Sikorski, the events of Inhabited Island are only briefly mentioned. The events that authors planned to describe in White Ferz took place at some time between the events of Beetle in the Anthill and The Time Wanderers. Adaptations There have been three PC games based on the novel released in 2007: adventure game Inhabited Island: Earthling developed by Step Creative Group, strategy Galactic Assault developed by Wargaming and first-person shooter Inhabited Island: Prisoner of Power by Orion Games. A two-part Russian movie adaptation, Dark Planet, was released in December 2008 and April 2009. English editions The first English translation, by H.S. Jacobson, is based on the censored version of the novel, as the original version was unavailable to the translator. The second English translation, by Andrew Bromfield, reflects the original version. References External links Read Prisoners of Power by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky on the Perm mirror of Maxim Moshkow Library. 1969 in the Soviet Union 1969 science fiction novels Soviet science fiction novels Noon Universe novels Post-apocalyptic novels Novels by Arkady and