Another interesting philosophical science-fiction book that was mentioned by Otto Rössler in his ‘Endophysics‘. The title of the english translation is ‘Definitely Maybe, a Manuscript Discovered in Unusual Circumstances’, and it was written by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky in 1976-77. They wrote many books, amongst which the book on which ‘Stalker’ by Andrei Tarkovski was based. The original russian title of this one translates as ‘One billion years until the end of the world’ which I find is much more original and which I think goes a lot better with the content.
The story is very well written, paints a great picture of soviet life in the seventies through the exchanges of a group of state-employed scientists. All of the action takes place in their kitchens. They find out that something is hindering them whenever they seem to reach a breakthrough in their research. It is hard to tell more without giving away the surprise towards the end.

Just as in ‘Simulacron-3‘ the story is based on the assumption that what one man concludes behind his desk can have big, immediate metaphysical consequences. A lazy man’s dream ?