The Kid from Hell
1973 novel by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky
The Kid from Hell (Russian: Парень из преисподней, romanized: Paren' iz preispodney) is a 1973 science fiction novel by Russian writers Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, set in the Noon Universe. The English translation was included in a single volume entitled Escape Attempt with the other Noon universe stories Escape Attempt and Space Mowgli.
Plot summary
The novel tells the story of Gack, a teenage boy from Giganda. Gack is a cadet commando in Fighting Cats, an elite army unit of the Alai Duchy. In the first chapter of the novel, Gack is mortally wounded in a dogfight with an attacking tank unit of the army of the Empire. Kornei Yashmaa, a progressor, finds him and takes him to Earth where doctors practically resurrect Gack. Yashmaa tries to help Gack adjust to life on Earth.
However, Gack does not want to cooperate, nor does he believe that Earth is real. At first, he thinks that everything Yashmaa and other Earthlings tell him is a part of his psychological training as an officer of the Alai Army. Even after Yashmaa proves to him that he is, indeed, on a different planet Gack still thinks that the Alai military has sent him to Earth on an unknown secret mission.
“The Kid from Hell” enters the record as 1973 novel by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Hell, novel and Arkady can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“The Kid from Hell” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Hell, novel and Arkady provides the most credible route into that argument.
Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Mar 9, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4345096. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1973.
Rights, attribution and provenance may remain disputed even when a general reference summary presents a stable account. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.
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The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “The Kid from Hell”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow The Kid from Hell primary sources, The Kid from Hell archive and Hell research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “The Kid from Hell”?
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This entry incorporates text from “The Kid from Hell” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.