Andromeda: A Space-Age Tale - A Masterpiece of Soviet Sci-Fi

[Kiev Communard]

Simply breathtaking could be the one word that I could use to describe ANDROMEDA. This book has been noted by many noteworthy critics as one of the greatest sci-fi books ever written and with good reason. Personally I have yet to see a book with the same grand vision as envisaged by Ivan Yefremov when he wrote ANDROMEDA in 1957, the year of the launch of Sputnik 1.

ANDROMEDA depicts an utterly changed utopian Earth of the Far Future, reaching into the 4th Millenium. The whole of Earth is united as one under a new Communist order, of the original type envisaged by Marx and Engels. Mankind has reached far into the depths of the solar system through space travel. Earth has established contact with and subsequent relations with terrestrial civilisations in the distant depths of the Galaxy and Earth itself is now part of a "Great Circle", an organisation that has consolidated planets of the solar system into one collective, united whole through communications by means of super-powerful radio communication. People on Earth all work for the common good of mankind and indeed Earth's ecological problems have become a thing of the distant past as people have worked to transform Earth into a beautiful lush garden where scenarios like pollution and starvation have simply vanished. The whole of Earth's continents is linked by a railway system towering into the skies and known as The Spiral Way. Within the backdrop of this wondrous new utopia, the lives of a number of a number of people intersect as they help with the preparations for a space journey of monumental proportions into the Andromeda Nebula and beyond, people with unusual names like "Darr Veter", "Mven Mass", "Veda Kong", et al et al.

Russian sci-fi has often leaned heavily towards use of advanced technology for the benefit of mankind and ANDROMEDA is no exception. The book is crammed full of fascinating details of scientific and technological extrapolation, with detailed explanation into the ecological order of the new Earth and other planets of the solar system, technology used for palaeontological excavation (not surprising as Yefremov was also a noted palaeontologist), spaceship design and space station construction, the composition of the stars and outer planets, even the composition and properties of the fuel used to power spaceships is discussed at length. Indeed on occasion, Yefremov swamps the book with such complex technical explanation that the text becomes quite wooden and a showcase for technological achievement at the expense of character development. Yet at the same time, there are passages within the book that radiate with an exquisite, surreal beauty almost beyond comprehension, an example being the book's fourth chapter "The River Of Time". The dreamy and beautiful descriptions of Earth in that chapter simply left me at a loss for words.

There are a few agendas within ANDROMEDA that are worthy of close attention. Yefremov was many years ahead of his time in warning against the dangers of nuclear power, this comes across very strongly in the book where "It was soon realized that this (e.g. the old nuclear sources) meant danger to life on the planet and nuclear power possibilities were greatly curtailed. It was decided to destroy all the stocks of thermo-nuclear materials that had been accumulating a long time radioactive isotopes of uranium, thorium, hydrogen, cobalt and lithium - as soon as a method of ejecting them beyond Earth's atmosphere had been devised". All of this written nearly thirty years before the Chernobyl nuclear power plant disaster of 1986. There is also very little in the way of political didactics, this may come across as surprising as ANDROMEDA was written in Russia during the height of the Soviet era. Yefremov was very much a "humanistic" communist who believed in the the free will of people to accept communism rather than through forced indoctrination and throughout the book, there is no pandering whatsoever to a supreme Communist Party. Indeed the Soviet authorities were suspicious of ANDROMEDA upon its first publication and Yefremov himself turned down an offer to be awarded a Lenin Prize for the book if he included a pivotal role for the Communist Party in the reshaping of the book's new societal order.

The reader of intelligent, thought-provoking sci-fi need go no further than ANDROMEDA. I have given the book four stars rather than five due to the previously mentioned fault of Yefremov on occasion to push technological explanation at the expense of character development but do not let this dissuade you from careful reading of the book. ANDROMEDA truly represents the pinnacle of Soviet sci-fi at its finest.

One of the best Socialist science fiction books ever written. I personally recommend it to everyone interested in how the Soviet SF envisioned the Communist future of mankind - maybe these depictions can become a reality!

Hyperlink - http://ifile.it/25mf7v6/B001CENS3Y.7z

Alternate hyperlink - http://lib.udm.ru/lib/EFREMOW/tuman_engl.txt

[Rafiq]

...cool

[Kiev Communard]

...cool


I am glad you liked this book. Here is my favourite excerpt, depicting how Veda Kong, a human artist chosen for her achievement to represent the Earth in the first communication with Delta Tucanae civilization that has just connected with the Solar system via "the Great Circle" of Galactic slower-than-light communication, tells the extraterrestrials (which, due to the light speed barrier would only obtain this message in 267 years) about the history of Earth and human development towards Communism:




Darr Veter took Mven's hand and placed it on a handle in which a ruby eye glowed. Mven obediently turned the handle as far as it would go. All the power produced on Earth by 1,760 gigantic power stations was being concentrated on the equator, on a mountain 5,000 metres high. A multicoloured luminescence appeared over the peak, formed a sphere and then surged upwards in a spearheaded column that pierced the very depths of the sky. Like the narrow column of a whirlwind it remained poised over the glassy sphere, and over its surface, climbing upwards, ran a spiral of dazzlingly brilliant blue smoke.

The directed rays cut a regular channel through Earth's atmosphere that acted as a line of communication between Earth and the Outer Stations. At a height of 36,000 kilometres above Earth hung the diurnal satellite, a giant station that revolved around Earth's axis once in twenty-four hours and kept in the plane of the equator so that to all intents and purposes it stood motionless over Mount Kenya in East Africa, the point that had been selected for permanent communications with the Outer Stations. There was another satellite, Number 57, revolving around the 90th meridian at a height of 57,000 kilometres and communicating with the Tibetan Receiving and Transmitting Observatory. The conditions for the formation of a transmission channel were better at the Tibetan station but communication was not constant. These two giant satellites also maintained contact with a number of automatic stations situated at various points round Earth.

The narrow panel on the right went dark, a signal that the transmission channel had connected with the receiving station of the satellite. Then the gold-framed, pearl screen lit up. In its centre appeared a monstrously enlarged figure that grew clearer and then smiled with a big mouth. This was Goor Hahn, one of the observers on the diurnal satellite, whose picture on the screen grew rapidly to fantastic proportions. He nodded and stretched out a ten-foot arm to switch on all the Outer Stations around our planet. They were linked up in one circuit by the power transmitted from Earth. The sensitive eyes of receivers turned in all directions into the Universe. The planet of a dull red star in the Unicorn Constellation that had shortly before sent out a call, had a better contact with Satellite 57 and Goor Hahn switched over to it. This invisible contact between Earth and the planet of another star would last for three-quarters of an hour and not a moment of that valuable time could be lost.

Veda Kong, at a sign from Darr Veter, stood before the screen on a gleaming round metal dais. Invisible rays poured down from above and noticeably deepened the sun-tan of her skin. Electron machines worked soundlessly as they translated her words into the language of the Great Circle. In thirteen years' time the receivers on the planet of the dull-red star would write down the incoming oscillations in universal symbols and, if they had them, electron machines would translate the symbols into the living speech of the planet's inhabitants.

"All the same, it is a pity that those distant beings will not hear the soft melodious voice of a woman of Earth and will not understand its expressiveness," thought Darr Veter. "Who knows how their ears may be constructed, they may possess quite a different type of hearing. But vision, which uses that part of the electromagnetic oscillations capable of penetrating the atmosphere, is almost the same throughout the Universe and they will behold the charming Veda in her flush of excitement...."

Darr Veter did not take his eyes off Veda's tiny ear, partly covered by a lock of hair, while he listened to her lecture.

Briefly but clearly Veda Kong spoke of the chief stages in the history of mankind. She spoke of the early epochs of man's existence, when there were numerous large and small nations that were in constant conflict owing to the economic and ideological hostility that divided their countries. She spoke very briefly and gave the era the name of the Era of Disunity. People living in the Era of the Great Circle were not interested in lists of destructive wars and horrible sufferings or the so-called great rulers that filled the ancient history books. More important to them was the development of productive forces and the forming of ideas, the history of art and knowledge and the struggle to create a real man, the way in which the creative urge had been developed, and people had arrived at new conceptions of the world, of social relations and of the duty, rights and happiness of man, conceptions that had nurtured the mighty tree of communist society that flourished throughout the planet.

During the last century of the Era of Disunity, known as the Fission Age, people had at last begun to understand that their misfortunes were due to a social structure that had originated in times of savagery; they realized that all their strength, all the future of mankind, lay in labour, in the correlated efforts of millions of free people, in science and in a way of life reorganized on scientific lines. Men came to understand the basic laws of social development, the dialectically contradictory course of history and the necessity to train people in the spirit of strict social discipline, something that became of greater importance as the population of the planet increased.

In the Fission Age the struggle between old and new ideas had become more acute and had led to the division of the world into two camps-the old and the new states with differing economic systems. The first kinds of atomic energy had been discovered by that time but the stubbornness of those who championed the old order bad almost led mankind into a colossal catastrophe.

The new social system was bound to win although victory was delayed on account of the difficulty of training people in the new spirit. The rebuilding of the world on communist lines entailed a radical economic change accompanied by the disappearance of poverty, hunger and heavy, exhausting toil. The changes brought about in economy made necessary an intricate system to direct production and distribution and could only be put into effect by the inculcation of social consciousness in every person.

Communist society had not been established in all countries and amongst all nations simultaneously. A tremendous effort had been required to eliminate the hostility and, especially, the lies that had remained from the propaganda prevalent during the ideological struggle of the Fission Age. Many mistakes had been made in this period when new human relations were developing. Here and there insurrections had been raised by backward people who worshipped the past and who, in their ignorance, saw a way out of man's difficulties in a return to that past.

With inevitable persistence the new way of life had spread over the entire Earth and the many races and nations were united into a single friendly and wise family.

Thus began the next era, the Era of World Unity, consisting of four ages-the Age of Alliance, the Age of Lingual Disunity, the Age of Power Development and the Age of the Common Tongue.

Society developed more rapidly and each new age passed more speedily than the preceding one as man's power over nature progressed with giant steps.

In the ancient Utopian dreams of a happy future great importance was attached to man's gradual liberation from the necessity to work. The Utopians promised man an abundance of all he needed for a short working day of two or three hours and the rest of his time lie could devote to doing nothing, to the doice far niente of the novelists. This fantasy, naturally, arose out of man's abhorrence of the arduous, exhausting toil of ancient days.

People soon realized that happiness can derive from labour, from a never-ceasing struggle against nature, the overcoming of difficulties and the solution of ever new problems arising out of the development of science and economy. Man needed to work to the full measure of his strength but his labour had to be creative and in accordance with his natural talents and inclinations, and it had to be varied and changed from time to time. The development of cybernetics, the technique of automatic control, a comprehensive education and the development of intellectual abilities coupled with the finest physical training of each individual, made it possible for a person to change his profession frequently, learn another easily and bring endless variety into his work so that it became more and more satisfying. Progressively expanding science embraced all aspects of life and a growing number of people came to know the joy of the creator, the discoverer of new secrets of nature. Art played a great part in social education and in forming the new way of life. Then came the most magnificent era in man's history, the Era of Common Labour consisting of four ages, the Age of Simplification, the Age of Realignment, the Age of the First Abundance and the Age of the Cosmos.

A technical revolution of the new period was the invention of concentrated electricity with its high-capacity accumulators and tiny electric motors. Before this, man had learned to use semi-conductors in intricate weak-current circuits for his automated cybernetic machines. The work of the mechanic became as delicate as that of the jeweller but at the same time it served to subordinate energy on a Cosmic scale.

The demand that everybody should have everything required the simplification of articles of everyday use. Man ceased to be the slave of his possessions, and the elaboration of standard components enabled articles and machines to be produced in great variety from a comparatively small number of elements in the same way as the great variety of living organisms is made up of a small number of different cells: the cells consist of albumins, the albumins come from proteins and so on. Feeding in former ages had been so wasteful that its rationalization made it easy to feed, without detriment, a population that had increased by thousands of millions.

All the forces of society that had formerly been expended on the creation of war machines, on the maintenance of huge armies that did no useful labour and on propaganda and its trumpery, were channelled into improving man's way of life and promoting scientific knowledge.

Truly marvellous, isn't it?