Hard To Be A God

"History of the Arkanar Massacre" (2013) by Alekseyi German

"That's the worst thing - to lose yourself in the role. Inside each one of us, the noble bastard struggles with the communard. And everything around us helps the bastard, while the communard is all alone - the Earth is thousands and thousands of parsecs away." Don Condor paused, stroking his knees. "That's how it is, Anton," he said in a firmer voice. "We must remain communards."

-From Hard to be a God by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky