“The Way to Amalteia” by Arkady Strugatsky and Boris Strugatsky is story #52 of 52 from The World Treasury of Science Fiction edited by David G. Hartwell (1989), an anthology my short story club is group reading. Stories are discussed on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. “The Way to Amalteia” was first published in Russian in Путь на Амальтею in 1960.

“The Way to Amalteia” was first translated into English in 1963, and later in 1985, before the 1989 translation for The World Treasury of Science Fiction. Finding those other editions will be difficult, and since there have been no English reprints since 1989, it shows the value of owning a copy of The World Treasury of Science Fiction. Collecting retrospective anthologies of science fiction is one way of preserving literary history.

“The Way to Amalteia” starts out on J-Station, a research settlement on Amalthea, the fifth moon of Jupiter. The Strugatsky brothers describe the beautiful site of Jupiter from that moon. But we learn that the station is running out of food, and everyone is on strict rations. The settlement is desperately waiting for the freighter, Takhmasib, to deliver supplies, but it’s running late, and they’ve lost contact with the ship.

The story then cuts to the freighter, where we learn why. The Takhmasib has suffered several mishaps and has fallen into Jupiter. The Strugatsky brothers have set up an almost impossible situation and we don’t know if the crew can save themselves.

This is a hard science story, especially for 1960. Hartwell, in his introduction said it would fit right in an issue of Astounding, and that’s true. Hartwell said it also reminded him of Clarke’s “A Meeting with Medusa,” which I thought too. I also thought the story sounded like something Hal Clement would write, and it turns out Arkady Strugatsky translated Mission of Gravity into English.

There’s a lot going for “The Way to Amalteia,” but unfortunately, on this first reading, the story didn’t thrill me. I vaguely sensed it was an outstanding story, but something kept me at a distance. Having so many things go wrong spoiled it for me on one level. Having the cause of the major catastrophe be due to meteorites seemed cheesy. And I wondered if I was missing the flavor of the story because it was a translated work. Finally, there were places where figures were given, and they just seemed impossible to believe.

On page 1027 the photon drive pushes the ship to sixty-seven thousand kilometers a second. That’s about a fourth of the speed of light (299,792 kps). On page 1058 we learn the pressure on the ship as it descends into Jupiter’s atmosphere is three hundred atmospheres. This is after the ship had several holes punched in it from meteors and was patched with resin and metal plates. And there was another mention of the crushing pressure of Jupiter’s atmosphere that was much higher than three hundred atmospheres, but I can’t find it. All these problems remind me of old science fiction movies of the 1950s where science was often mumbo jumbo. But were these errors the writers’ fault, or the translators?

I also feel if I read “The Way to Amalteia” a couple more times in the future I might get to like it quite a bit. I don’t think one reading does the story justice. The story comes across like an episode of Star Trek, where a valiant captain is forced to deal with a series of ever escalating problems, but then at the last minute saves the day.

The Strugatskys spend a lot of time developing the characterization of the international crew and filling the story with textural details. I couldn’t tell if they were realistic or stereotypes because I wondered if some of the flavor was lost in translation.

“The Way to Amalteia” was an interesting story to close the anthology, especially since it’s a novella. Hartwell must have thought highly of the story. That’s why I think it might improve on rereading. But most readers don’t reread. I would have put “The Way to Amalteia” where Hartwell put “A Meeting with Medusa” on page 146 and closed with “A Meeting with Medusa.” The Clarke story offers way more hope for the future.

James Wallace Harris, 9/2/23