Prisoners of Power, also known as Inhabited Island (Russian: Обитаемый остров, romanized: Obitaemyy ostrov, pronounced [ɐbʲɪˈtaɪmɨj ˈostrəf]), is a science fiction novel written by Soviet authors Arkady and Boris Strugatsky.
The protagonist is a youngster, Maxim Kammerer, who comes from the version of Earth that exists in the Noon Universe and gets stranded on an unknown planet named Saraksh.
Maxim Kammerer is a young amateur space explorer from Earth, regarded as a failure by his friends and relatives because this occupation is not considered to be a serious pursuit.
After being captured by armed natives and initially taken to what appears to be a concentration camp, Kammerer is sent to some governmental research institute which treats him as a mental patient.
He makes friends among the ordinary people that lead the life of privation and misery, while twice daily everyone is overcome by sudden and unexplained bouts of ecstatic enthusiasm, proclaiming their total allegiance and undying gratitude to the country's hidden rulers, known as the Unknown Fathers (in the censored versions Fire-bearing Creators), who are said to have the best interests of the people at heart, serving as bulwark against threats foreign and domestic, mainly from the so-called degens (degenerates), the uncompromising enemies of the people, the terrorists who sometimes blow up the anti-ballistic missile (ABM) towers strewn around the country.
When he refuses, he is shot multiple times, survives, and joins the underground which consists of the degens who suffer great headaches twice daily.
Captured, tried and sent to a concentration camp in the South, the same one where he has made his landing, he is finally revealed the truth about the towers by a fellow prisoner high-ranking member of the underground.
The constant low-intensity broadcast suppresses the ability of most people to evaluate information critically, making the omnipresent regime propaganda much more effective.
Having served in the war, he earns himself a rehabilitation from the state and is installed in a secret research institution at the behest of a powerful Father known as the Wanderer, who remains out of reach.
It is revealed that the powerful Father, the Wanderer, is in fact a human progressor named Rudolf Sikorski, carefully working in secret to gradually improve the lot of the people of Saraksh.
He describes the unanticipated consequences of Kammerer's rash actions: up to 20% of the people may die or go insane due to the withdrawal from the effects of mind the control signal; Saraksh faces famine, anarchy, widespread radioactive pollution, and looming invasion by the Island Empire which they planned to stop using the depression field.
[1] 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.