History Literature / AndromedaNebula

''Andromeda Nebula'' (Russian: Туманность Андромеды), also known by its English title ''Andromeda: A Space-Age Tale'' is a grand, sweeping, {{Utopia}}n epic by Soviet paleonotologist and SciFi author Creator/IvanYefremov. First published in 1955 in magazine form, and later in hardcover edition in 1957, it's widely considered a first ''modern'' speculative fiction work in the Soviet literature, and is notable for breaking the prevailing (and [[ExecutiveMeddling governmentally promoted]]) "[[TwentyMinutesIntoThefuture near aim]]" trend in the Soviet science fiction, with its atomic steamrollers and automatic threshers as a central point of the story.

* FasterThanLightTravel: Doesn't yet exist, all Great Circle's starships (including Earth's) are Slower-than-Light. Its neccessity is a one of the central themes in the novel. It gets invented by the time of ''Hour of the Bull'' which takes place [[SequelGap centuries in the future]].

** Unfortunately, as a sequel points out, the marriages between Eartlings and Tucanians (yes, TheyDo) are childless. Two centuries after the contact geneticists promise to solve it in a few more decades.

* LoveTriangle: Two: one, between Erg Noor, Veda Kong and Dar Veter, is closer to [[TriangRelations Type 7]], although Noor and Veter are friends and both [[IWantMyBelovedToBeHappy wish for their beloved to be happy]]. The second, between Kong, Noor and Nisa Greet, is Type 11, with Nisa [[PseudoRomanticFriendship seeing much older and more experienced Veda]] as her CoolBigSis.

The novel features a complex interwoven plot that centers on a several key characters and storylines: starship captain Erg Noor, returning from his last expedition with many important discoveries, the ex-Outer Stations director[[note]]A kind of communications engineer responsible for the Great Circle transmissions[[/note]] Dar Veter, who's DesperatelyLookingForAPurposeInLife, his eventual replacement Mven Mass, a very passionate man whose biggest hatred is a vastness of Space, a prominent historian Veda Kong, who is the tip of the LoveTriangle between Noor and Veter, a supremely talented physicist Ren Boz, [[LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters etc, etc, etc]].

Efremov moved the focus on to the society itself, and while not ''entirely'' successful (his writing is perceived by many as dry and scholastic, and his characters often seems to be [[AuthorTract phylosophical ideals]] rather than people), the novel became an important stepping stone for both the social SF, and for the scale and aim of the SF as a whole. He also introduced several crucial concepts of his social theory he worked on most of his life and which later brought him a fair share of problems, but this time, the ideological tone of the novel wasn't yet dissonant enough with the official line.

* LoveTriangle: Two: one, between Erg Noor, Veda Kong and Dar Veter, is closer to [[TriangRelations Type 7]], although Noor and Veter are friends and both [[IWantMyBelovedToBeHappy wish for their beloved to be happy]]. The second, between Kong, Noor and Nisa Greet, is Type 11, with Nisa [[RomanticTwoGirlFriendship seeing much older and more experienced Veda]] as her CoolBigSis.

* OlderThanTheyLook: Most of the characters, as the life expectancy on Earth is generally somewhat above two centuries. In fact it is about three centuries, but most people work so hard they rarely live past two hundred.
* {{Precursors}}: In a way: an alien space ship on the planet of the Iron Star is ancient beyond belief, having arrived from Andromeda Galaxy.
* RagnarokProofing: Played for AnAesop. One chapter describes how archaeologists have discovered an ancient vault serving as a time capsule of sorts for a pre-communist civilization. It contains what said civilization considered to be the pinnacle of achievement: luxurious cars, weapons and other objects of vanity. The archaeologists are baffled because these hold no value to them whatsoever as opposed to artifacts of art and knowledge. They hope to find these in the innermost section of the vault beyond a massive blast door that they fail to breach, but trigger a trap that causes the vault to collapse. It's strongly implied that it was in fact housing nuclear weapons.

* MohsScaleOfScienceFictionHardness: A strong 5. It was firmly grounded in scientific knowledge of the time (yes, even FTL travel) and despite a few ScienceMarchesOn and TechnologyMarchesOn moments, it has mostly held up pretty well.

* {{Adorkable}}: Ren Boz, who's a textbook portrait of a nerd, but is full of puppy charm.

** The novel starts with an expedition to a non-starfaring Great Ring planet Zirda that ceased communicating several decades ago. Earth had to check on it being its closest Ring neighbour. Circumstantial evidence -- lifeless cities, weird giant flowers covering everything, high radiation levels, information about what technologies were popular on Zirda -- suggested everybody died of radioactive pollution. The expedition found no survivors.

In the end the novel, drawing much of its inspiration from foreign science fiction not yet widely known in the Soviet Union (and in some cases [[{{Deconstruction}} deconstructing]] its predictions), just kind of opened the flood gates for Epic Soviet Science Fiction. Stuck for decades in their ghetto, the authors and readers alike suddenly realized that the genre is much ''bigger'' than they're used to think, and jumped on the bandwagon enthusiastically, paving the way for the Golden Age of the genre.

* GreenAesop: [[JustifiedTrope Justifiably]] [[InvertedTrope inverted]]. Yes, humans cheerfully redrew the Earth's maps and changed its climatic zones with preciously small regard to the fate of its biosphere, but that was because there largely ''wasn't'' any biosphere to protects, humans [[GaiasLament having already destroyed it in their wars]], with the Himalayas being basically the only place left relatively untouched. Earth in the novels [[AfterTheEnd is a post-apocalyptic world]], rebuilt at a great effort and enormous expense, and its biosphere is virtually completely artificial.

* CoolStarship: ''Tantra'' in the first part, ''Swan'' in the epilogue. ''Sail'' and ''Algorab'' fail to qualify by being lost, even if the former is a ''Tantra'''s sistership and gets finally found.