New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, (1994). First edition - The first novel (preceded by books of short stories) by this award-winning Russian fabulist, the story of a young man who has dreamed of space flight since he was a boy, who enrolls as a cosmonaut, a devasting satire of the Soviet space program. George Saunders comments that "Pelevin is a brilliant satirist of things Soviet, but also of things human, our petty squabbles, haff-assed inventions and, above all, our corruptible dreams." Translated from the Russian by Andrew Bromfield. 139 pp.