History Literature / DefinitelyMaybe

* [[spoiler:TheBadGuyWins]]: Pretty much what happens in the story. [[spoiler: Laws of Entropy got everyone besides Vecherovsky (whom they will likely crush as well) to abandon their work and didn’t sustain any damage in process.]] On the other hand, [[spoiler: it’s debatable how much of a bad guy they really are.]]

* YourCheatingHeart: Played with. The [[spoiler: Laws of Entropy]] send his wife’s former sexy classmate to visit the protagonist Malyanov, who is certainly tempted to cheat, but doesn’t give in. Later, [[spoiler: the same laws make the classmate lose her bra at his flat to be found by his wife, which nearly causes a divorce and forces Malyanov to reveal the truth about the proceedings.]]

An astrophysicist, Dmitry Aleskeevich Malyanov, is working on his thesis on stellar interaction in his apartment, when strange events start happening. An attractive woman apparently sent by his wife arrives, people who have never been interested in astrophysics start probing him about his work, and he's visited by unpleasantly insistent government investigators. What do all of these events mean?

An astrophysicist, Dmitry Aleskeevich Malyanov, is working on his thesis on stellar interaction in his apartment, when strange events start happening. An attractive woman apparently sent by his wife arrives, people who have never been interested in astrophysics start probing him about his work, and he's visited by unpleasantly manic government security forces. What do all of these events mean?

''Definitely Maybe'' (''За миллиард лет до конца света'', literally translated ''A Billion Years Before the End of the World'') is a short 1974 novel by the Creator/StrugatskyBrothers about the nature of scientific progress.

DownerEnding: Most people will probably see the end of the story as this. [[spoiler: Malyanov and his friends have been forced to abandon the work on the certainly Nobel-winning prizes, all of them are likely to be mentally scarred for life, Zakhar now has his illegitimate child to take care of and Vecherovsky is very likely to get killed for carrying on.]] On the other hand, [[Vaingarten will get to be the head of an advanced research center as a consolation prize, all of them are alive for now and Zakhar might yet reconnect with the child’s mother, or become a better person through the parental responsibilities.]], so it’s not all bad.

* CreepyChild - [[spoiler: Zakhar's illegitimate son]].

* MoodWhiplash: Many of the [[spoiler: Zakhar’s child]] lines have almost nothing to do with the events at hand and to a lot to lighten the mood.

* ForScience!: Vecherovsky takes this approach to [[spoiler: Laws of Entropy]] at the end of the story, believing that since it is ultimately [[spoiler: a mindless force of nature, it has to obey constants and laws like gravity or strong nuclear force]], and thus he can figure out the way it works. The novel ends before we find out whether or not he will succeed.

* EldtrichAbomination: [[spoiler: Laws of Entropy]] fit pretty well under the definition, although they’re arguably one of the milder forms.

* LawfulNeutral: [[spoiler: Laws of Entropy. Their only concern is to prevent humanity (or any other civilisation) from becoming a supercivilisation in order to keep the universal balance, which they try to accomplish through relatively mild means at first.)]]

* AncientConspiracy: The Order of Nine
* TheCasanova: Zakhar
* CreepyChild

''Definitely Maybe'' (''За миллиард лет до конца света'', literally translated ''A Billion Years Before the End of the World'') is a short 1974 novel by the StrugatskyBrothers about the nature of scientific progress.